Trump-Allied Group Spearheads Letter Against Section 232 Legislation
The Coalition for a Prosperous America recruited about 50 companies and a few local trade groups, such as the Tooling, Manufacturing and Technologies Association of Farmington Hills, Michigan, to sign a letter opposing Section 232 reform. Two bills have been introduced in both chambers that would give Congress more say on when the national security tariffs are levied. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is working on a way to bridge the two bills. His bill would allow the president to implement tariffs for a period of time, but they could not continue without congressional approval. The letter, sent April 30, said giving Congress the authority to approve the tariffs rather than disapprove them "would be unprecedented and would effectively kill the Section 232 law." The letter notes that the 1962 law that allows these tariffs "expressly recognizes that our nation’s economic welfare is critical to national security."
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The letter follows an opinion piece on the same topic published April 29 in the Des Moines Register and written by Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. He said that Grassley is angered by the Section 232 tariffs because of retaliatory tariffs that hit farm producers. "Trade retaliation may be reducing farm income in some cases, particularly when combined with the impact of commodity prices and recent flooding, but the proposed anti-enforcement legislation would offer no immediate relief from any of that. Instead, the proposed actions would reinforce the view that most Americans hold: No one in Washington is willing to stand up against foreign trade cheats, even when that cheating risks our security. That’s one of the reasons Trump won the presidency in the first place," he wrote.