2021-02490. Adjusting Imports of Aluminum Into the United States

Proclamation 10144 of February 1, 2021

Adjusting Imports of Aluminum Into the United States

A Proclamation

1. Proclamation 10139 of January 19, 2021 (Adjusting Imports of Aluminum Into the United States), amended Proclamation 9704 (Adjusting Imports of Aluminum Into the United States), as amended, with respect to tariffs on certain imports of aluminum articles proclaimed under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, as amended (19 U.S.C. 1862). Proclamation 10139 provides that those amendments will not take effect until 12:01 a.m. on February 3, 2021.

2. I consider it is necessary and appropriate in light of our national security interests to maintain, at this time, the tariff treatment applied to aluminum article imports from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) under Proclamation 9704, as amended, as they are currently in effect as of this date. Accordingly, and as provided for in clause (6) of Proclamation 10139, I am terminating the modifications contained in that proclamation before they take effect.

3. Proclamation 9704 applied tariffs to help ensure the economic viability of the domestic aluminum industry—an industry that the Secretary of Commerce had previously identified as essential to our critical industries and national defense. Because robust domestic aluminum production capacity is essential to meet our current and future national security needs, Proclamation 9704 aimed to revive idled aluminum facilities, open closed smelters and mills, preserve necessary skills, and maintain or increase domestic production by reducing United States reliance on foreign producers.

4. In my view, the available evidence indicates that imports from the UAE may still displace domestic production, and thereby threaten to impair our national security. Proclamation 9704 authorized the Secretary of Commerce to grant exclusions from the aluminum tariffs based on specific national security considerations or if specific imported aluminum articles were determined not to be produced sufficiently in the United States, such that the imports would not diminish domestic production. Tellingly, there have been 33 such exclusion requests for aluminum imported from the UAE, covering 587,007 metric tons of articles, and the Secretary of Commerce has denied 32 of those requests, covering 582,007 metric tons. This indicates the large degree of overlap between imports from the UAE and what our domestic industry is capable of producing.

5. Since the tariff on aluminum imports was imposed, such imports substantially decreased, including a 25 percent reduction from the UAE, and domestic aluminum production increased by 22 percent through 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic began. In light of that history, I believe that maintaining the tariff is likely to be more effective in protecting our national security than the untested quota described in Proclamation 10139.

6. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, authorizes the President to adjust the imports of an article and its derivatives that are being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security.

7. Section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2483), authorizes the President to embody in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States the substance of statutes affecting import treatment, and actions thereunder, including the removal, modification, continuance, or imposition of any rate of duty or other import restriction.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, do hereby proclaim that Proclamation 10139, including the Annex, is revoked.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.

  Filed 2-3-21; 11:15 am]