The process of providing exclusions from U.S. section 232 duties on steel and aluminum imports may be undermining the purpose of the duties and is proving lucrative for importers making the requests. As at Feb. 19 over 110,000 filings had been lodged, with 89.9% relating to steel. While final decisions have only been made in 23.1% of cases as at Feb. 19 the rate of approval has been high at 74.7% for steel and 85.2% for aluminum. That compares to just 21.2% for requests for exclusions from section 301 duties on Chinese exports. The rate of approval may be driving an increase in seaborne ...