President Joe Biden said he would keep US tariffs in place on aluminium imports from the United Arab Emirates – reversing a last-minute move by his predecessor to grant the Arabian Gulf nation relief from the duties.
The ten percent tariff on the country’s metal imports will remain in place for national security reasons, the White House announced Monday evening.
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US President Joe Biden
“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,” Biden said.
Former President Donald Trump announced he was suspending tariffs on the UAE’s aluminium imports in a proclamation released on Inauguration Day as he travelled aboard Air Force One from Washington to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The reprieve came after the UAE agreed last year to a Trump-brokered deal to re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
Aluminium ranks as the UAE’s biggest exported good by value to the US. The Arab nation sold $1.3 billion worth of the metal to American buyers in 2019, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
CRU Group, a commodity researcher, says shipments from the UAE were roughly 11.5 percent of total US aluminium imports last year through November, and about 14 percent in 2019. In 2019, the UAE metal accounted for about 11 percent of all aluminium consumed in the US, according to the research group.
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