PMPA Testifies on Impact of Section 232 Tariffs to USITC
PMPA’s Director of Industry Affairs, Miles Free, provided testimony, as did Rich Hoster president of Smith and Richardson, supported by Omar Nashashibi of The Franklin Partnership, regarding the impact of the 232 Tariffs, first imposed by the Trump administration, and continuing on today.
“ Without availability, we cannot make parts, plain and simple. If the goal of the Section 232 tariffs was to substantially increase the supply of steel and aluminum in the U.S., they did not achieve that goal. If the goal was to incentivize the reshoring of downstream parts made with steel and aluminum, it had the opposite effect.”
One of the points that we made was that obtaining steel was not like buying Coke or Pepsi- due to customer requirements for safety and functionality, often a PPAP or other lengthy customer approval process is needed. That point was taken up by one of the commissioners, who asked the panels that followed about substitutability in their applications.
Our testimony, along with that of others, made the front page of Steel Times International- Gains overshadowed by losses. https://www.steeltimesint.com/news/gains-overshadowed-by-losses
Rich Hoster, President of PMPA member company Smith and Richardson also provided testimony on their company’s experience with material sourcing difficulties resulting from the tariffs.
“Even pre-pandemic, we did not see the tariffs increase the supply of the type of steel we use, we did not see China or other countries contributing to the oversupply change their behavior as a result of the tariffs, and we certainly did not generate new business when Washington increased the price of our most important input. The Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum continue to have a negative impact on our business and we expect that impact to only worsen with ongoing inflation and the expected economic slowdown.”
PMPA is a founding member of the industry Coalition of Metal Manufacturers and Users (CAMMU) who issued a press release that you can view here.