, after the first year of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, 51,345 requests were filed by 905 firms in 46 states and Puerto Rico, with 47 percent of the steel exclusion requests and 67 percent of aluminum exclusion requests approved, respectively.web portal. The USTR has acknowledged the slow response to exemption requests to those lists, and is hiring additional staff to handle the anticipated influx of new requests for List 3.
Companies in the United States have now effectively passed the rubicon from looking at planned trade restrictions and speculating on the effects to having actual measurable data on the impact around the world. It’s not surprising that American imports to China have fallen about 27 percent compared to last year,. But the geopolitical effects of the tariffs have expanded, with Japanese and South Korean imports to China down 16 and 18 percent, respectively.
Flexport Chief Economist Phil Levy has tracked the sometimes haphazard progress of trade negotiations in the past year. “In March, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed optimism about striking a trade deal with Vietnam; now President Trump is threatening new tariffs. The administration went from trumpeting the new USMCA to threatening Mexico with immigration-related tariffs,” he says.
As the effects of tariffs — actual or threatened — take their toll, businesses will be under more pressure to offset the financial implications. To learn more about how to drive supply chain cost efficiencies, read
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