A bipartisan group of US Senators led by Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have introduced the “Stop Mexico's Steel Surge Act” to restore the 25 percent Section 232 tariffs on steel imports from Mexico, which were eliminated in 2019 with the promise that Mexico would make steel and aluminum trade with the United States “transparent.”
“A bill to require the Secretary of Commerce to reimpose duties on steel imported into the United States from Mexico, and for other purposes,” says the initiative promoted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States.
“Pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, for a period of not less than one year, the Secretary of Commerce shall impose duties on steel imported into the United States from Mexico equivalent to the duties that were in place on May 16 , 2019,” says the bill.
The initiative has already concerned market watchers in Mexico. Chief Economist of the Mexican Grupo Financiero Base, Gabriela Siller, said, “There are risks for trade between the United States and Mexico.”
Mexico is the United States' largest trading partner. The imposition of tariffs, unlike in the past, Mexico will be able to establish trade retaliation only on products from the steel industry.
The professor in Government Relations and International Trade, Jorge Molina Larrondo, told SteelOrbis that the bill has until June to advance. That is, before the summer legislative recess, prior to the start of the presidential campaigns in the United States. Congress will return to sessions until the first week of September and will conclude its session on December 15.
Molina commented that nine of the bill's 10 sponsors also signed other letters expressing their concerns with Mexican steel imports, which were sent last year to US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
For Siller, the fact that the bill has the support of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) increases the likelihood that it will gain support in the Senate because it is an election year.
The “Stop Mexico's Steel Surge Act” initiative comes a month before Cleveland-Cliffs fires more than 900 workers from its tinplate production plant located in Weirton, West Virginia, for alleged unfair trade from Canada, China , Germany and South Korea.
Cleveland-Cliffs says that the closure of that plant is due to the US International Trade Commission denying the application of antidumping and countervailing duties on tin mill products calculated by the US Department of Commerce.
Separately, Donald Trump, the potential Republican Party candidate for the presidency of the United States, told US television station CNBC that he is ready to intensify the trade war with China and target that country's auto industry that supposedly intends to use Mexico. as a gateway for automobile exports to the American market.
In February, CNBC said, Trump would consider imposing tariffs of 60 percent or more on products from China and a blanket tariff of 10 percent on all goods imported into the United States if he wins the election.