President Trump intends to meet with his Cabinet in the near future. They will be discussing recommendations from the U. S. Commerce Department (CD) that he received in April. The CD suggested that firm quotas be established on uranium imports because of national security. Major U.S. nuclear utilities have been warning Trump that it would be a bad idea of impose quotas on uranium imports from Canada and other global producers. They say that the result would be thousand of lost jobs and serious negative effects on nuclear power plants.
Utility lobbyists for major nuclear utilities such as Exelon, Duke Energy and other owners nuclear power plants claim that establishing quotas on the quantity of uranium that the U.S. imports from international suppliers is “misguided”. They say that Trump should reject any such proposals. Meanwhile, uranium mining firms in the U.S. have petitioned for uranium quotas to protect jobs in the mining sector. These petitions reference trade provisions that are necessary for national security.
The Ad-hoc Utility Group is an advocacy group for U.S. nuclear utilities. They claim that mining jobs that would be saved by uranium quotas would be few compared to jobs that would lost in the nuclear power industry. David Tamasi is the head of the AUG lobbying push against the uranium quotas. He estimates that about one hundred and fifty jobs will be lost in the uranium mining sector if quotas are not impose. If quotas are established, as many as a hundred thousand jobs could be lost at nuclear power plants.
Tamas told an interviewer that he understands that the president has been trying to prevent the premature closure of both coal plants and nuclear power plants because of market factors. However, if uranium quotas are imposed, nuclear fuel will be more expensive, and this will cause more premature closures.
Whatever action the CD has recommended to the President has not been made public. Tamasi said that he believed that the CD did not make a single recommendation but rather provided the President with a range of options from taking no action all the way to imposing quotas.
A Cabinet meeting with the President had been scheduled for June 20th but was abruptly cancelled on June 19th. It has been speculated that the unexpected departure of Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan may have the reason that the original meeting was canceled. Shanahan would be expected to provide details on national security issues at any meeting involving quotas. The U.S. Department of Defense consumes a lot of uranium as fuel for nuclear propulsion.
The Cabinet meeting with the President is now expect to take place next week. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in Washington, D.C. for bilateral meetings with the President. In view of the fact that Canada is the top foreign supplier of uranium to the U.S., it is expected that Trudeau will strongly oppose the imposition of quotas for uranium import. He will probably make the case that imposing quotas on Canadian uranium import will cause more damage to U.S. national security than not imposing quotas.