Trade Cases

New Portal for Section 232 Exclusion Requests

Written by Sandy Williams


Beginning today, a new portal is available from the U.S. Department of Commerce for those who need to file exclusion requests under the Section 232 measures on steel and aluminum. Companies can request to have products they import excluded from the 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum if their needs cannot be met domestically.

The “232 Exclusion Portal” replaces the original one at www.regulations.gov. All new requests should be submitted on the new portal. Previous exclusion requests will remain on the older system to receive objections, rebuttals and surrebuttals until the request receives a final decision.

Commerce hopes the changes will “streamline the exclusions process while enhancing data integrity and quality controls.” Users can access a user guide to help with the submission process at https://www.commerce.gov/page/section-232-investigations.

Latest in Trade Cases

Leibowitz: Trump 2.0 signals Cold War 2.0 trade and China policies

China is one of the elephants in the room as the transition to Trump 2.0 continues. While the people and policies are still being formulated, it’s possible to detect a strategy for the new Trump administration. I think there are two imperative issues that the new administration needs to balance. The Trump strategy will, I believe, follow the following points. First, trade is one of the issues that got President Trump elected in 2016 and 2024—it nearly got him elected in 2020, save for the pandemic. If President Trump had won in 2020, I might be writing chronicles about the end of his eight years in the White House now instead of projecting what the next Trump administration would accomplish or break. Oh, well—that’s life. Trade will necessarily be a key feature of relations with China for the next four years.