The American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) is rallying its members to provide funding and support for its lobbying efforts against the Trump administration’s section 232 steel security investigation, Kallanish reports.

AIIS, which has been critical of the investigation, is asking its members to contribute a collective $150,000 to “…engage a top economic group to accurately quantify the negative effects of new, unwarranted import restrictions on responsibly traded steel on jobs, tax revenues, and supply chain efficiencies of responsibly traded steel imports,” according to a fundraising letter. The money will also be used to update a 2006 port study and auxiliary lobbying efforts.

AIIS has expressed concern that the 232 investigation is merely a cover for additional and possibly unnecessary trade barriers. It was launched, ostensibly, to determine whether the domestic steel industry needs further import protection for national security reasons,

“In our view, responsibly traded imports of steel are not the major problem facing the domestic producers, but rather the ever-cyclical, prevailing market conditions, a continuing global over supply of steel, and, with all due respect, certain inherent cost and/or efficiency issues in some cases,” AIIS chairman John Foster says. “As companies whose livelihoods depend upon the international steel supply chain, I respectfully suggest that we ought to emphasize two points with respect to the new administration’s approach to trade. First, we must stress a deliberate, thoughtful approach, taking care not to throw out the baby with the bath water, as the saying goes. In addition, we must also be diligent in making sure that the administration does not overreach by unnecessarily constricting one economic sector to the detriment of our manufacturing base, and the tens of thousands of jobs that comprise the imported steel supply chain: union and non-union longshoremen, our blue and brown water ports, steamship carriers, truckers, warehousing and material handlers, railroad and barging companies, customs brokers, insurance carriers, and of course, the steel trading companies themselves.”