The Commerce Department is currently investigating the impact that steel and aluminum imports have on national security, and its findings on steel imports are expected very soon — possibly in the next few days. The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) thinks a comprehensive finding is warranted, and AAM President Scott Paul has written a blog post at Medium pointing out that support for a tough trade policy is one of few areas of political agreement between President Trump and industrial state Democrats. Read an excerpt below:
The domestic steel and aluminum industries have been deluged by impossibly cheap import competition in recent years — much of it from state-subsidized competition in China. Thousands of steelworkers have been laid off. There’s only one aluminum smelter still in business in the United States.
The president should be praised, then, for directing his trade authorities to focus on these critical sectors. And he’s received it from those industrial state Democrats.
But the question remains: Will President Trump follow through on all of the trade promises he made?
The president is running up against his own deadline. He and his Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, have promised to define the scope of these Section 232 investigations by the end of June. As the clock winds down, there are reports that President Trump is facing pressure to limit their reach.
If President Trump caves in to that pressure, it will be grounds for major disappointment.