Warren accuses Commerce Dept of hurting US workers with tariff exemptions

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused the Commerce Department of giving numerous exemptions to the steel tariffs to U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies.

“You appear to be implementing the tariff exemption program in a way that undermines American steel producers – by allowing large tariff-free imports of foreign steel – and harms American-owned steel-dependent companies instead of improving their competitive advantage over companies headquartered in China and other foreign countries,” Warren wrote in her letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, according to a statement released Wednesday.

Warren alleged that “the overwhelming majority of exemptions” to the tariffs went to U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned firms. 

Warren’s staff reportedly found that more than 81 percent of the 500 approved exemptions the Department made public as of Oct. 22 were filed by companies that either are headquartered abroad or have a parent company that is. 

{mosads}She contends that 52 percent of the exemptions went to Japanese-owned companies, which she says were successful in 84 percent of their exemption requests. 

The Commerce Department rebutted Warren’s claims in a statement forwarded to The Hill.

“This analysis betrays a lack of understanding of the exclusion process, which was put in place to supply domestic consumers with steel that could not or would not be produced here in the United States or in an exempted country,” wrote department spokesman Kevin Manning.

“The exclusions are granted only when US producers do not make the product in sufficient quantity or quality, or if there are other specific national security concerns,” he said. “The decisions are not based on the specific geographic origin of the shipment.”

Manning added that American producers only objected to 20 of the 12,044 exceptions granted.

“If potential US suppliers do not object to exclusion requests, citing their ability to make the imported product, the granting of an exclusion should not hurt domestic steel production.”