The U.S. administration has halted trade negotiations and doubled Turkish steel tariffs in response to Turkey’s advance into Syria on Monday, October 14. The proposed $100 billion trade deal with the country is on hold due to the advance.

Before tariffs were doubled in 2018 under the S232 tariff remedy, Turkey was the sixth-largest foreign supplier of steel to the United States. Imports of steel dropped 76 percent after the 2018 S232 tariff implementation, which strongly affected the strength of the Turkish lira and affected the world trading markets.

Turkey saw brief relief in early 2019, when the S232 tariff was reduced back to the world rate of 25 percent. However, the USTR declared that the country was no longer eligible for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program and all products exported from Turkey to the U.S. were now subject to the normal Column 1 duty rate, instead of a free or reduced rate under the GSP program.

Approximately 14.4 million metric tons of steel have been imported into the U.S. so far in 2019, with Brazil, Canada and Mexico being the top three foreign importers.

If you have questions about how this could impact your imports, please contact us or reach out to your Ascent Global Logistics representative directly.