The US Department of Commerce approved this week exclusions from Section 232 tariffs for Poplar Bluff, Missouri-based nail manufacturer Mid Continent Steel & Wire. The exclusions, which were officially published online on Tuesday, cover close to nine-tenths of the volume of imported steel that Mid Continent uses.
Mid Continent, maker of Magnum Nails, applied for the exclusions, or exemptions from the 25 percent tariffs, on June 18, 2018, shortly after Section 232 duties were extended to cover Canada and Mexico, a major source of raw material for the nail manufacturer. In its requests, Mid Continent showed that US steelmakers could not provide the volume of raw material that the manufacturer required.
“We have been making nails all through the nine and a half months it took for our requests to be granted,” said Chris Pratt, operations general manager of Mid Continent. “We can now methodically ramp up production levels, moving toward the growth path we were on before the tariffs went into effect.”
In a press release, the company said the tariffs had a damaging effect on its business, in large part because the company’s foreign competitors could make nails abroad and export them to the US, free of the Section 232 tariffs. Since the tariffs were enacted, Mid Continent’s manufacturing workforce fell from more than 500 to less than 300.