Adoption and Procedures of the Section 232 Steel and Aluminum Tariff Inclusions Process

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 705</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250428-0073]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0694-AK13</RIN> <SUBJECT>Adoption and Procedures of the Section 232 Steel and Aluminum Tariff Inclusions Process</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On February 10, 2025, the President issued Proclamations 10895, “Adjusting Imports of Aluminum into The United States” (Aluminum Proclamation), and 10896, “Adjusting Imports of Steel into the United States” (Steel Proclamation), imposing specified rates of duty on imports of aluminum and steel articles and certain derivative steel and aluminum articles, respectively (collectively, the Inclusions Proclamations). The Inclusions Proclamations also required the Secretary of Commerce to establish a process for including additional derivative aluminum and steel articles within the scope of the ad valorem duties. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), in this interim final rule (IFR), establishes the process for including additional derivative aluminum and steel articles within the scope of the ad valorem duties authorized by the President under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended (Section 232). This IFR also removes the aluminum and steel exclusions process authorized by clause 3 of the March 18, 2018, Presidential Proclamations 9704 and 9705 (collectively, the Exclusions Proclamations). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective April 30, 2025. Comments on this interim final rule must be received by BIS no later than June 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Public comments are to be made via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/BIS-2025-0023.</E> The <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> ID for this rule is: BIS-2025-0023. Please refer to RIN 0694-AK13 in all comments. All filers submitting comments in <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> should use the name of the person or entity submitting the comments as the name of their files, in accordance with the instructions below. Anyone submitting business confidential information should clearly identify the business confidential portion at the time of submission, file a statement justifying nondisclosure and referring to the specific legal authority claimed, and provide a non-confidential version of the submission. For comments submitted electronically containing business confidential information, the file name of the business confidential version should begin with the characters “BC.” Any page containing business confidential information must be clearly marked “BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL” on the top of that page. The corresponding non-confidential version of those comments must be clearly marked “PUBLIC.” The file name of the non-confidential version should begin with the character “P.” Any submissions with file names that do not begin with either a “BC” or a “P” will be assumed to be public and will be made publicly available at: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Commenters submitting business confidential information are encouraged to scan a hard copy of the non-confidential version to create an image of the file, rather than submitting a digital copy with redactions applied, to avoid inadvertent redaction errors which could enable the public to read business confidential information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For questions regarding this interim final rule, contact Stephen Astle at 202-482-2533, or email <E T="03">Steel232@bis.doc.gov</E> regarding provisions in this rule specific to steel inclusion requests and <E T="03">Aluminum232@bis.doc.gov</E> regarding provisions in this rule specific to aluminum inclusion requests. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Section 232 and Adjustments of Imports of Aluminum and Steel</HD> On February 10, 2025, the President issued Proclamation 10895 “Adjusting Imports of Aluminum into the United States”, and Proclamation 10896 “Adjusting Imports of Steel into the United States” which imposed a 25 percent ad valorem tariff on imports of aluminum and steel articles and certain derivative steel and aluminum articles, respectively. These Inclusions Proclamations terminated the aluminum and steel exclusions process as authorized in the clause 3 of Proclamation 9705, clause 1 of Proclamation 9777, and clause 2 of Proclamation 9980, as well as a number of country exemptions and alternative arrangements to the steel and aluminum duties implemented in subsequent Presidential Proclamations. The Inclusions Proclamations also required the Secretary of Commerce (the Secretary) to establish within 90 days a process for including additional derivative aluminum and steel articles within the scope of the ad valorem duties proclaimed in Exclusion Proclamations, Presidential Proclamation 9704, Proclamation 9705, Proclamation 9980, clause 4 of the Proclamation 10896, and clause 5 of Proclamation 10895, respectively. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended (19 U.S.C. 1862), provides authority for the Department of Commerce (Commerce) to conduct investigations to determine the effects of imports of an article on the national security of the United States and authorizes the President to adjust the imports of the article and its derivatives based on such an investigation and affirmative determination by the Department of Commerce that the article is being importing into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States. The Department of Commerce previously concluded Section 232 investigations into imports of steel and aluminum articles in 2018 that led to the implementation of the Section 232 Steel and Aluminum Duties in the Exclusions Proclamations. These duties were extended to apply to imports of certain derivative steel and aluminum articles in Presidential Proclamation 9980 of January 29, 2020, as well as Presidential Proclamations 10895 and 10896 of February 10, 2025. Presidential Proclamations 10895 and 10896 set several requirements for the Department of Commerce to include certain derivative articles of steel and aluminum under the Section 232 Steel and Aluminum Duties established by the Exclusions Proclamations. It authorizes the Secretary to include additional derivative steel or aluminum articles within the scope of the tariffs unilaterally, or at the request of a producer of steel or aluminum articles or derivative articles within the United States, or an industry association representing one or more such producers. Applications for the inclusion of derivative articles must establish that imports of a derivative article have increased in a manner that threatens to impair the national security of the United States or otherwise undermine the objectives set forth in the 2018 Section 232 investigations or any Proclamations issued pursuant thereto. The Inclusions Proclamations direct that the Secretary of Commerce shall issue a determination on any such request within 60 days of its receipt by the Department. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Purpose of This IFR</HD> BIS is publishing this IFR to establish the Section 232 inclusions process, as required by the Inclusions Proclamations. The Inclusions Proclamations direct that this process shall be established within 90 days, meaning no later than May 10, 2025. This interim final rule serves two functions. First, this IFR establishes the Section 232 inclusions process. Second, this IFR makes conforming edits to remove the Section 232 aluminum and steel exclusions process regulatory provisions because that process is no longer in effect as of February 10, 2025, so those regulatory provisions are no longer needed. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Submitting Public Comments on This Interim Final Rule</HD> The comment submission process on this IFR is separate and distinct from the comment submission process for the inclusion requests. For submitting comments on this IFR in <E T="03">regulations.gov,</E> follow the instructions as specified in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this IFR. For submitting comments on inclusion requests, please follow the instructions as provided in the regulatory text. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Amendments To Establish the Section 232 Inclusions Process</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Submission Phase</HD> BIS will establish a submissions window to receive aluminum and steel derivative inclusion requests from industry during two-week submission windows opening three times annually at the beginning of each May, September, and January, with the first such window to open on May 1, 2025. Submissions of inclusions requests must be submitted in PDF format via the Defense Industrial Base Programs inbox at <E T="03">DIBPrograms@bis.doc.gov.</E> For the request to be considered valid, the requestor must provide the following in their request: • Clear identification of the applicant ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> individual, company, or trade association); • A precise definition of the derivative article; • The eight or ten-digit HTSUS classification requested to be included in the scope of the ad valorem tariffs; • An explanation of why the article is a steel or aluminum derivative article, including, to the extent practicable, information on the total value of the article's steel and/or aluminum content as a share of the derivative article's total value; • Pertinent information on the domestic industry affected; • Statistics on imports and domestic production; • A description of how and to what extent imports of the derivative article threaten ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 41k characters. 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