Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
clear sky
weather
OMAN
25°C / 25°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

US apex court turns away challenge to Trump’s tariffs on steel imports

No Image
minus
plus

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to US steel import tariffs imposed in 2018 under former President Donald Trump - a policy he touted as defending American national security - and largely maintained by President Joe Biden.


The justices turned away an appeal by a group of US-based steel importers of a lower court’s ruling rejecting their challenge to the Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs under a Cold War-era trade law.


At issue in the case was whether the findings in a 2018 report to Trump that recommended he impose steel tariffs were subject to second-guessing by courts under federal administrative law.


The report by then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross determined that excessive steel imports were threatening US national security, with the imports causing domestic steel plants to close and undermining the US “ability to meet national security production requirements in a national emergency.”


In March 2018, Trump ordered a 25 per cent tariff on steel imports from most nations. He also ordered a 10 per cent tariff on aluminium imports.


Several companies that import steel products, including subsidiaries of Colmar, Pennsylvania-based Dorman Products Inc and Turkish steel producer Borusan Mannesmann , sued in the US Court of International Trade. They argued that the Ross report was “arbitrary and capricious” under a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act.


The trade court in 2021 ruled against the steel importers, finding that the Ross report could not be challenged in court because it was not a “final agency action.”


On appeal, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit broke with the trade court, ruling that the Ross findings did constitute a final agency action. However, the Federal Circuit found that the report’s findings were not subject to court review under administrative law and that the policy otherwise complied with federal law.


The Biden administration, which has largely maintained Trump’s tariff policy, urged the justices not to take up the appeal. Trump is a Republican and Biden a Democrat. — Reuters


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon