Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962
Section 232 gives the U.S. President authority to impose tariffs or other trade restrictions on imports found — following a Department of Commerce investigation — to threaten U.S. national security.
It has been the legal basis for the ongoing series of additional duties on steel, aluminum, copper, and automobiles/automobile parts imports.
For automobile parts specifically, CBP guidance CSMS #66684128 ("Duty Offset for Imports of Automobile Parts") implements a duty-offset program tied to the Section 232 automobile tariffs: U.S. vehicle manufacturers that assemble vehicles domestically can earn an import adjustment offset — an allocated credit tied to their U.S. production — that reduces the Section 232 duties owed on their imported automobile parts. To claim this offset on an entry, the importer must report an approved offset license number issued to them under the program, tying the specific import to their allocated credit.
For steel, aluminum, and copper, the equivalent requirement is not a license number but a declaration of where the metal was actually melted/smelted and cast — since those tariffs depend on the metal's melt/cast origin rather than just the finished product's country of origin.
How Global Classification Manages This Information
For products classified under a
USA country profile
, Global Classification provides a dedicated set of fields - grouped under "Section 232" - where users declare:- Steel (country of melt and pour),
- Aluminum (primary and secondary country of smelt, country of cast), and
- Copper (primary and secondary country of smelt, country of cast).
- Automobile Parts Offset License Number field.