Sen. Ron Johnson also requested that Ross supply his committee with numbers showing how many exclusion requests have been made and denied and how many domestic steel producers have objected to them. | Alex Wong/Getty Images GOP chairman calls on Trump administration to explain tariff exclusions

Sen. Ron Johnson is demanding that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross explain the administration's thinking on how companies can be excluded from the administration's tariffs, claiming that his state's businesses find it "arbitrary" and it has cost just one Wisconsin business millions of dollars.

In a letter to Ross obtained by POLITICO, Johnson (R-Wis.) said businesses in his state are complaining about the hurdles for applying for an exclusion from the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the administration on U.S. allies. And the Homeland Security chairman said the increased tariffs are hurting Wisconsin companies.


"The Department's denial of the exclusion request has resulted in [one] Wisconsin business incurring an additional $2.6 million tariff cost that can not be used to expand production or to pay salaries of new employees," Johnson said in the letter, citing an internal committee correspondence. "Across the country, many businesses share the same frustration about the difficult and time-consuming process."

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Johnson also requested that Ross supply his committee with numbers showing how many exclusion requests have been made and denied and how many domestic steel producers have objected to them. He also asked the government to explain how it decides whether to shield a business from the tariff costs.

The Wisconsin Republican has been among the most pointed GOP critics of the Trump administration's tariff regime, blasting the plan of imposing tariffs and then bailing out affected farmers as a "Soviet-style" economy. Though President Donald Trump ratcheted down his trade war with Europe recently as fears rose in Congress over a new round of tariffs aimed at foreign cars, Johnson has not been persuaded to come around to the president's approach.

Still, there is not yet support to pass legislation that would tie the administration's hands on national security tariffs and require congressional approval. So Johnson is using his committee's oversight powers to unveil the administration's decision-making, asking for the Commerce Department's staff to brief his committee staff about the tariff process within the next two weeks.

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