The U.S. and Japan strike a deal to roll back Trump-era steel tariffs.

The Trump administration imposed metal tariffs on dozens of countries in 2018, saying a glut of foreign steel and aluminum threatened to put U.S. manufacturers out of business and posed a national security threat. President Donald J. Trump did lift or scale back the tariffs on certain countries, including Mexico and Canada, in return for trade concessions, but many governments remained subject to the levies.

Wendy Cutler, the vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said imposing national security-related tariffs on a close U.S. ally like Japan “never made sense, and was an unfortunate chapter in U.S. trade history.”

“By putting the steel matter finally behind us, it opens the door for stepped-up cooperation on a range of pressing regional and global economic and trade issues,” she said.

The trade barriers pleased many domestic metal makers and unions, which said they were necessary to preserve American industry and compete with a glut of cheap foreign metal from countries like China. But the tariffs have upset both foreign allies and many American companies that use imported steel and aluminum to make cars, washing machines, beer cans and other products, and that were forced to pay higher prices for their inputs.

Kevin Dempsey, the chief executive of the American Iron and Steel Institute, an industry group, said the agreement with Japan would prevent another import surge that would undermine American industry and employment in the steel sector.

“We appreciate the Biden administration’s continued recognition that the American steel industry is critical to our national and economic security and to efforts to build a more sustainable U.S. economy,” he said, adding that “proper implementation and enforcement” of the deal would be essential.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/business/economy/us-japan-steel-tariffs.html