Lee Smith, shareholder and leader of the International Trade and National Security Practice at the law firm of Baker Donelson, details seven new categories of imports that have come under investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department as potential threats to national security.
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 allows the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security to investigate whether national security is being injured or threatened by certain imports. Donald Trump is the first president in modern times to invoke the law, initiating actions in his first term on aluminum and steel, titanium sponge, uranium, passenger vehicles and light trucks. But only aluminum and steel became subject to duties of 25% at that time.
In March of this year, the Commerce Department launched Section 232 investigations into seven additional import categories: copper, timber and lumber, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and derivatives, pharmaceuticals and related ingredients, heavy-duty trucks, processed critical minerals and derivative products, and commercial aircraft and jet engines.
Commerce has issued requests for comments, with deadlines ranging from 21 to 30 days. The agency is seeking to identify the sources and volumes of imports within each category, along with any acts of predatory practices or pricing manipulations, all to be examined from the perspective of U.S. national security. Commerce will also seek input from other relevant federal agencies, including the Defense Department.
Responses to the request for comments are voluntary, although Smith says “It’s incumbent on companies to inform the government of issues they’re seeing and provide recommendations.”
Notwithstanding the short timeline for comments, Smith notes, many companies might have been taken by surprise by the Section 232 investigations, given that there’s no formal initiation notice to the public, other than publication in the Federal Register that an investigation is underway.
Can businesses expect yet another round of Section 232 investigations over the course of the second Trump Administration, affecting other types of products? “I certainly would not rule it out,” Smith says.