Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gives any sitting president a standing authority to restrict steel imports on national security grounds — no congressional vote needed. When the White House pulls that lever, it compresses foreign supply into the U.S. market and pushes domestic hot-rolled coil prices above global benchmarks. The mills that sit behind that tariff wall don't have to do anything differently. Washington does the pricing for them.
That mechanism hasn't gone away. Tariff rates, quota allocations, and country-specific exemptions have been adjusted repeatedly across administrations, each adjustment recalibrating the spread. The structure is now effectively permanent infrastructure for U.S. integrated and electric-arc furnace producers.