In April, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and Republican Senator Patrick Toomey sent a letter to Biden urging him to lift the tariff in order to boost the Ukrainian economy. The US Commerce Department said in early May that the Biden administration would suspend 232 tariffs on Ukrainian steel for a year.
"I have determined to suspend the tariffs set forth in Proclamation 9705 for the import of steel articles and derivative steel articles from Ukraine for 1 year," Biden said in a statement issued on Friday, adding that the US secretary of commerce "shall monitor the situation in the domestic steel industry and developments in Ukraine’s steel industry and inform me of any need to terminate or extend this suspension."
The president noted that Ukraine accounted for less than 1% of the US imports in 2021 and predicted that Ukraine's steel production and the steel imports to the US from Ukraine would be even lower due to Russia's special military operation.
In 2018, the Trump administration imposed tariffs of 25% on certain steel from numerous countries, including Ukraine, as part of a national security initiative to improve the US industrial manufacturing capacity.