[author: Antoinette Bedros]

On November 26, 2018, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) asking the GAO to review the process by which the Department of Commerce has been processing requests for exclusion from the tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum imports by President Trump under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. As we previously reported, in March of this year, Commerce issued procedures by which members of the public could request that imports of specific steel or aluminum products be excluded from these tariffs.

In the letter, the bipartisan group of Senators expressed concern about the effectiveness of the exclusion request process. In particular, they noted that members of Congress and U.S. businesses have repeatedly raised concerns with Commerce about the pace, transparency, and fairness of the Section 232 exclusion process. The letter, which was signed by Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), urged the GAO to evaluate a number of issues concerning Commerce’s process, including Commerce’s training of staff handling exclusion requests, the transparency of the exclusion request process, and the criteria used to approve or deny exclusion requests.

On the same day, after facing criticism on these and other issues from the private sector and Congress, Commerce announced that it had developed a new online portal for the Section 232 exclusion process. The new portal is intended to improve the process for submitting and commenting on exclusion requests for the steel and aluminum tariffs. According to the Federal Register notice announcing the new portal, the portal will “streamline the exclusion process for all interested parties, including importers and domestic manufacturers by replacing the data collection point with web-based forms, which will enhance data integrity and quality controls.” The new portal will also enable interested parties to more easily view and track developments for all submitted exclusion requests.

Transition to the new Section 232 portal will begin in late 2018 to early 2019. Before a full transition to the system takes place, Commerce will conduct a public testing phase during which members of the public will be able to test and comment on the new portal. Additional information on how to participate in the public testing phase of the new Section 232 portal is available here.