We’ve told you about Mid Continent Nail Corp., the Poplar Bluff, Mo., manufacturer hit hard by Donald Trump’s steel tariffs. The company can’t get the steel it needs at competitive prices and is losing money on every box of nails it ships, but it can’t get a tariff exclusion from the Commerce Department.
Mid Continent filed its exclusion application in June at Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, better known as the bureaucracy for steel lobbyists. Traditionally any objection from a domestic producer was enough to defeat an exclusion request. But a recent modification allows a user to rebut the objection. Commerce then accepts a final “sur-rebuttal” from the domestic producer.
More from WSJ>
