U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on Monday (April 18) said that the Obama administration must do everything in its power to remedy global overcapacity of aluminum and steel, but stopped short of saying he would advise the president to implement a global safeguard on aluminum if the International Trade Commission finds that imports are causing serious injury to domestic industry and recommends relief in response to a union petition.
[Daily News| April 18, 2016 |Inside US Trade]
“I think this is a very serious issue, and we have to do everything we can to press countries who have excess capacity,” Froman said. “In terms of the specific question of 201, that will be now before the ITC and we’ll be monitoring the outcome of that. The next step, as I understand, is for the ITC to make a determination.”
Froman made these comments in response to a question on whether USTR will advise President Obama to implement a section 201 global safeguard on aluminum if the ITC determines in its section 201 investigation that U.S. industry is being seriously injured by imports.
