Change of Heart: JSW Steel USA turns against steel tariffs

After initially praising President Trump's decision to implement the Section 232 steel tariffs, JSW Steel USA is now suing the Commerce Department for being denied an exemption from the steel tariffs. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Last June the president and CEO of JSW Steel USA, John Hritz, was praising President Trump for the tariffs he felt would reward companies such as his, whose $1 billion investment in America included the restoration of a shuttered steel plant in Ohio. “We are completely in lockstep with the president,” Mr. Hritz told CNBC.

That was then. Now JSW Steel USA, the U.S. arm of an Indian infrastructure conglomerate, is suing the Trump Commerce Department. The beef? That Commerce denied the company the exclusions it sought from the very steel tariffs it earlier endorsed.

JSW wants exemptions for a steel slab in "quality and quantities" not available in the U.S.

In denying its request for an exclusion, says JSW, the Trump Administration “yielded to the objections” of three U.S. steelmakers — United States Steel Corp oration, AK Steel Corp oration, and NucorCorp oration — without examining whether they could produce the steel slab JSW needs to make its own products. JSW complains it has had to pay “tens of millions in tariffs from which it should have been exempted.”

With the steel tariffs in place, time will tell if JSW decides to have yet another change of heart.

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Emell Derra Adolphus has more than a decade of writing and journalism experience. He is senior editor of ENR’s Top Lists and Survey Rankings at ENR magazine and frequently contributes stories on technology, climate resiliency, diversity, equity and inclusion.