On March 8, 2018, the President issued Proclamations 9704 and 9705 concurring with the findings of the January 11, 2018 reports of the Secretary of Commerce on the effects of imports of aluminum and steel mill articles (steel articles) on the national security and determining that adjusting aluminum and steel imports through the imposition of duties is necessary so that their imports will no longer threaten to impair the national security. On February 10, 2025, the President issued Proclamations 10895 “Adjusting Imports of Aluminum into The United States” (Aluminum Proclamation), and 10896 “Adjusting Imports of Steel into the United States” (Steel Proclamation), imposing specified rates of duty on imports of aluminum and steel, respectively (collectively, the Inclusions Proclamations). The Inclusions Proclamations also required the Secretary of Commerce to establish within 90 days a process for including additional derivative aluminum and steel articles within the scope of the ad valorem duties proclaimed in Proclamations 9704, 9705, 9980, and clause 4 of the Steel Proclamation and clause 5 of the Aluminum Proclamation, respectively. Presidential Proclamations 10895 and 10896 set several requirements for the Department of Commerce to process petitions requesting the inclusion of certain derivative articles of steel and aluminum under the Section 232 Steel and Aluminum Duties established by Presidential Proclamations 9704 and 9705 in March 2018. They state that the process shall provide for including additional derivative articles at the direction of the Secretary unilaterally, or at the request of a producer of steel or aluminum articles or derivative articles within the United States or an industry association representing one or more such producers. Applications for the inclusion of derivative articles must establish that imports of a derivative article have increased in a manner that threatens to impair the national security of the United States or otherwise undermine the objectives set forth in the 2018 Section 232 investigations or any Proclamations issued pursuant thereto. The Inclusions Proclamations direct that the Secretary of Commerce shall issue a determination on any such request within 60 days of its receipt by the Department.

(a) Scope. This supplement specifies the requirements and process for how directly affected parties located in the United States may submit requests for inclusions to the duties imposed by the President. This supplement also specifies the requirements and process for how parties in the United States may submit inclusion requests (both business confidential and public versions) and public comments in response to submitted inclusion requests for inclusion of aluminum and steel derivative articles in the duties or quantitative limitations imposed by the President (collectively, 232 submissions). This supplement also identifies the time periods for such submissions, the methods of submission, and the information that must be included in such submissions. This supplement also identifies the process for analysis of the submissions and public comments and the action taken upon the final determinations by the Secretary or designee.

(b) Inclusion requests. Who may submit an inclusion request?

(1) Producers of steel or aluminum articles or derivative articles within the United States; or

(2) An industry association representing one or more such producers may submit inclusion requests.

(c) Timeframe of submitting requests. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) will open a submissions window to receive aluminum and steel derivative inclusion requests from industry during two-week submission windows three times annually at the beginning of each May, September, and January, with the first such window to open on May 1, 2025.

(d) Inclusion request requirements. For the request to be considered a valid request, the requestor must adhere to the following general requirements and provide the following:

(1) Submission through Defense Industrial Base Programs inbox at [email protected];

(2) Requests must be submitted in PDF format;

(3) Limited to 30 pages inclusive of all attachments;

(4) Any business confidential submissions must also include a non-confidential public version;

(5) Clear identification of the applicant (i.e., individual, company, or trade association);

(6) A precise definition of the derivative article;

(7) The eight or ten-digit HTSUS designation that serves as the basis for the determination;

(8) An explanation of why the article is a steel or aluminum derivative article; including, to the extent practicable, information on the total value of the article's steel and/or aluminum content as a share of the derivative article's total value;

(9) Pertinent information on the domestic industry affected;

(10) Statistics on imports and domestic production; and

(11) A description of how and to what extent imports of the derivative article threaten to impair the national security or otherwise undermine the objectives set forth in the 2018 Steel and Aluminum Section 232 investigation reports or related Inclusions Proclamations.

(e) BIS review of inclusion petition requests. BIS will review the received requests on a rolling basis during the two-week submission window to validate that the received requests contain all the required elements and do not exceed the page limitation. In the instance where the requestor did not include all the required elements or improperly filed the submission, at the discretion of the Under Secretary for Industry and Security, the requestor will be granted a 48-hour window to resubmit a proper filing.

(f) Where and how to submit public comments. (1) Where to submit? Public comments are to be made via regulations.gov via the regulations.gov ID BIS-2025-0023 at https://www.regulations.gov/docket/BIS-2025-0023. You may submit business confidential and public version public comments, identified by the regulations.gov ID BIS-2025-0023 through the Federal eRulemaking website: https://www.regulations.gov. No other submission methods are being used for submitting public comments for the inclusions process. Follow the instructions for submitting public comments. All filers using the regulations.gov should use the name of the person or entity submitting the comments as the name of their files, in accordance with the instructions below. Anyone submitting business confidential information should clearly identify the business confidential portion at the time of submission, file a statement justifying nondisclosure and referring to the specific legal authority claimed, and provide a non-confidential version of the submission.

(2) Business confidential submissions. For comments submitted electronically containing business confidential information, the file name of the business confidential version should begin with the characters “BC.” Any page containing business confidential information must be clearly marked “BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL” on the top of that page. The corresponding non-confidential version of the comments must be clearly marked “PUBLIC.” The file name of the non-confidential version should begin with the character “P.” The “BC” and “P” should be followed by the name of the person or entity submitting the comments. Any submissions with file names that do not begin with a “BC” or “P” will be assumed to be public and will be made publicly available through https://www.regulations.gov. Commenters submitting business confidential information are encouraged to scan a hard copy of the non-confidential version to create an image of the file, rather than submitting a digital copy with redactions applied, to avoid inadvertent redaction errors which could enable the public to read business confidential information.

(g) Review and Public Comment Phase. BIS will publicly post non-confidential versions of all valid requests for a 14-day public comment window on https://regulations.gov after the conclusion of the two-week submission window. Members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on the inclusion requests submitted by parties. Collecting public comments ensures a transparent, complete, and legally robust process for conducting analysis and making final determinations of derivative inclusion requests. BIS will review all accepted inclusion requests and public comments.

(h) Decision Phase. The Secretary or designee will sign a positive or negative determination. After the determination, BIS will, for each inclusions request, and, within 60 days of receiving the request, generate and publicly post on regulations.gov a determination memorandum that:

(1) States whether the request was approved or denied, and

(2) Summarizes the rationale for making this determination.

(3) The date of signature on the determination memorandum must be prior to the close of the respective 60-day derivative inclusion processing period, as directed in the Inclusions Proclamations. A Federal Register notice will then be issued that modifies the Annexes to the Inclusions Proclamations with the included derivative products at the eight- to ten-digit HTSUS subheading. Duties on newly included derivative articles will take effect shortly thereafter through consultation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.