UAE Aluminium Tariffs: Donald Trump pulled back, Joe Biden wants it live

The newly elected President of USA, Joe Biden will sustain a tariff rate of 10% on aluminium imports from the United Arab Emirates, reversing Ex-President Donald Trump’s move to terminate the tariffs on his last day as president, as reported by the White House.

On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden’s Republican predecessor had announced that he would exempt the UAE from the tariff on most aluminium imports, saying the two countries had reached a quota agreement that would restrict them.

However, the exemption was due to take effect on 3^rd February 2021.

Donald Trump ceded the exemption soon after designating the UAE a ‘major security partner’ and inking a deal to sell its 50 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets.

The Biden administration last week communicated that it would also temporarily pause the deal, and some others for a further to review.

On 1^st February 2021, the White House said: “The aluminium tariff would be more effective in protecting domestic producers than the ‘untested quota’ announced by Trump.”

President Joe Biden said: “In my view, the available evidence indicates that imports from the UAE may still displace domestic production, and thereby threaten to impair our national security.”

“I consider it is necessary and appropriate in light of our national security interests to maintain, at this time, the tariff treatment applied to aluminium article imports from the United Arab Emirates,” he said.

There has been no statement immediately available from the UAE embassy in Washington.

Biden did not address broader ties with the UAE or the arms sales, focusing on problems in the US aluminium industry – a sector seen as essential to national security.

Aluminium stands as the UAE’s biggest exported goods by value to the US. According to the office of the US Trade Representative, the Gulf nation sold $1.3 billion worth of the metal to US buyers in 2019.

“Trump first imposed the tariff in 2018 to revive idled aluminium facilities, open-closed smelters and mills and boost domestic production by cutting US reliance on foreign producers”, Biden said, adding that need still existed.

He also said: “The US Department of Commerce had denied 32 of 33 exemption requests from UAE producers before Trump’s 11th-hour decision.”

“US data also showed a drop of 25% in aluminium imports from the UAE after the tariff, matched by a rise of 22% in domestic aluminium production through 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic began”, the White House said.