Once upon a time there was a country that found a way to circumvent the import tariffs on steel and aluminum by smelting the metal at home, and then sending the ingots to another country to be finished and then exported into the 3rd country taking full advantage of the free trade agreement in place to which they were not a member. And then U.S. Customs stepped in and slapped a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum that wasn’t smelted within the free trade agreement countries. The moral of the story: Circumventing Customs regulations is like poking the bear. Reality can really bite.
