By Steve Levine · Updated August 13, 2026 · 5 min read
Quick Answer
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 lets the President restrict or tax imports of a product after the Commerce Department finds that it threatens to impair national security. It is the authority behind the steel and aluminum tariffs first imposed in 2018 and later expanded, and behind duties on automobiles and parts. Unlike the Section 122 surcharge, it has no rate ceiling and no expiration date. Most importantly for anyone reading about tariff refunds: the Supreme Court's February 2026 ruling did not touch Section 232, so nothing collected under it is refundable.
On this page
- What Section 232 authorizes
- How an investigation becomes a tariff
- What it currently covers
- Why no refund follows
- Reading a company's tariff exposure
- Frequently asked questions
Section 232, codified at 19 U.S.C. section 1862, dates to 1962 and is built around a single finding: that an article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security. If that finding is made, the President may adjust imports of the article — in practice, most often by imposing a tariff.
The statute's notion of national security is broader than defense procurement. It reaches the health of domestic industries whose capacity is treated as strategically important, which is how a provision written with military supply in mind came to support duties on construction steel, beverage cans and passenger cars.
The process runs through the Commerce Department rather than the U.S. Trade Representative. Commerce opens an investigation into a specific product category, takes comment, and reports its findings and recommendations to the President within a statutory window. The President then decides whether to concur and what action to take.
That procedural structure matters legally. Section 232 tariffs rest on an agency record and a specific statutory finding, which makes them considerably harder to challenge than an assertion of general emergency authority. Litigation over Section 232 has largely failed, and courts have been reluctant to second-guess the national security determination itself.
Steel and aluminum are the anchor. Duties on both were imposed in 2018 and have since been expanded in rate and in the range of downstream products captured, so a great deal of manufactured goods now carries some embedded Section 232 cost even when the finished item is not itself steel or aluminum. Automobiles and automotive parts are covered as well, and additional product categories have been brought in through later investigations.
The February 20, 2026 decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump held that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs. It said nothing about the Trade Expansion Act. Section 232 duties were validly imposed under a statute that plainly delegates the power, so they were never in the refund pool, and there is no Customs process for recovering them.
This is the single most common misreading of the tariff refund story. Headlines describing tariffs as struck down refer to one authority among several. A shopper who assumes every tariff paid since 2025 is coming back is going to be wrong about most of it.
For the consumer tariff class actions, this distinction does real work. When a company discloses a total tariff cost on an earnings call, that figure blends refundable IEEPA duties with non-refundable Section 232 and Section 301 duties. Only the first slice can support a double-recovery theory, because only the first slice comes back.
Campbell's has told investors that steel and aluminum account for roughly 60% of its gross tariff exposure. A toolmaker such as Stanley Black & Decker is similarly metal-intensive. In cases like those, the refundable portion is meaningfully narrower than the headline number, and plaintiffs have to establish which duties on which entries were actually refunded — a question only the importer of record can answer from its own customs records.
Are Section 232 tariffs refundable?
No. The Supreme Court's February 2026 decision addressed tariffs imposed under IEEPA and did not disturb Section 232, which rests on separate authority in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Duties collected on steel, aluminum, automobiles and other Section 232 products remain lawfully collected, and no refund process exists for them.
Why does Section 232 matter when reading a company's tariff exposure?
Because a headline tariff figure is not the refundable figure. A manufacturer that is heavily steel- or aluminum-intensive may carry most of its tariff cost under Section 232, which generates no refund, while only a narrower slice sat under IEEPA. Campbell's, for example, has told investors that steel and aluminum account for roughly 60% of its gross tariff exposure. Separating the refundable slice from the rest, product by product, is one of the hardest factual problems in the consumer tariff class actions.
Does Section 232 expire?
No. Unlike the Section 122 surcharge, which is capped at 15 percent and 150 days, Section 232 carries no rate ceiling and no built-in expiration. Tariffs imposed under it continue until modified or terminated, which is why duties first imposed in 2018 were still in force and being expanded years later.
Who decides that an import threatens national security?
The Commerce Department conducts the investigation and reports its findings to the President, who then decides whether to act and how. The statute frames national security broadly enough to take in domestic industrial capacity, not just defense needs, which is why it has supported duties on ordinary commercial goods such as steel, aluminum and passenger vehicles.
