BIS Leader Says First Product Exclusions Determinations Coming 'Soon'
BALTIMORE -- The first round of Section 232 product exclusions should be released soon, said Rich Ashooh, assistant secretary for export administration at the Department of Commerce. "The [Commerce] secretary is very anxious to reach that milestone," he said in response to a question from International Trade Today. Ashooh spoke at the annual American Association of Exporters and Importers Conference June 7.
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Ashooh also left open the door that there could be a change in the policy that there will be no exclusions granted to products imported by countries subject to quotas (see 1806060041). South Korea and Brazil are both top sources of steel imports, and both will face quotas on their steel exports. "Right now, the guidance in the proclamation is that we aren't doing that," he said. "But one thing I can tell you, this has been a learning process for us," he said.
He noted that the Bureau of Industry and Security tends to be the primary drafter of presidential proclamations on the 232 tariffs, and that once a proclamation is issued, it's immediately effective. "This has been a constantly improving process. Creating an exclusion process out of whole cloth is not anything I'd wish on you," he said. Ashooh joked about the headaches the Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs have been causing import professionals, riffing on a joke by an AAEI executive that the bar would be serving a cocktail called the 533. Alluding to a TV appearance by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Ashooh said that if that custom cocktail were served in an aluminum can, "the cost of the aluminum in that can is less than one penny."
He told the audience in Baltimore that BIS tries to be aware of the consequences of its regulations, and said "we're not always successful. " Ashooh said he thought once BIS's report on possible tariff or quota approaches was done, it would move on to other issues. "Now I find myself running an exclusion process because the remedies chosen were very, very broad," he said. "That is consuming a great deal of our time."
Ashooh, who spent years at Lockheed Martin before returning to public service, welcomed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, which he referred to by its acronym, FIRRMA. He said that CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) very much needed reform, as actors have begun to exploit its vulnerabilities. Foreign direct investment transactions in companies with sensitive technologies "are getting more complicated and more evasive," he said. As in many cases of government regulation, he said, people with nefarious intent work to figure it out, "and try to get around it."
He said FIRRMA is helpful legislation, and seeks to strike a balance between national security and being open to foreign direct investment, which is important to the economy. But he said if FIRRMA does not become law, BIS will still move ahead with regulations on how to better handle reviews of emerging technologies for export controls. And even if FIRRMA does pass, he told trade professionals, "I can promise you there will be a very substantial regulatory process."