Late last month President Joseph Biden issued Presidential Proclamations 10690 and 10691, extending the Section 232 Tariff-Rate Quotas ("TRQ") on imports of steel and aluminum into the United States from the European Union ("EU"). This represents a continuation of U.S. trade policy related to EU aluminum and steel established in 2021. The December 28, 2023, Presidential Proclamations stated the President had determined that eligible steel and aluminum imports from the EU do not threaten to impair national security, and as a result, the EU TRQs were extended through December 31, 2025.
In 2018, the Trump Administration issued Presidential Proclamations 9705 and 9704, which imposed under Section 232 a 10% tariff on aluminum and a 25% tariff on steel being imported into the United States, stating that these imports represented a threat to national security. This action prompted the EU to impose retaliatory tariffs on certain goods coming from the United States. In response to the EU's retaliatory tariffs, the White House issued Presidential Proclamations 10328 and 10327, which established a TRQ system for imports of aluminum and steel coming from the European Union. Under the EU TRQ, EU countries can import a total of 3.3 million metric tons (MT) of steel and 384,000 MT of aluminum (18,000 MT of unwrought aluminum and 366,040 MT tons of semi-finished wrought aluminum) annually tariff free.
The recent Proclamations extend the measures put in place by Proclamations 10328 and 10327 until December 31, 2025. In order to be eligible for in-quota treatment, steel articles should be melted and poured in the EU while aluminum articles must have a "certificate of analysis for a smelted (unalloyed) primary aluminum." Under the most recent Presidential Proclamations, the quantity of steel and aluminum to be brought in through the TRQ remains unchanged.
In addition, Proclamation 10691 states that all steel exclusions requests granted and utilized "in Fiscal Year 2021 (October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021) and the first quarter of calendar year 2022 (January 1, 2022, through March 31, 2022)," will be extended for a period of two years from the start of the proclamation. While the exclusion request process for aluminum is still available, there was no extension of exclusions previously issued.
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