WASHINGTON, June 8: The United States said on Friday it was exempting 61 steel products from controversial tariffs on imports that have infuriated US trading partners.

“These 61 products were excluded because it was determined that they are not sufficiently available from US producers and that excluding products would not undermine the effectiveness of the safeguard on steel products,” the Commerce Department said in a written statement.

The 61 exemptions are the first set of exclusions and more will be announced next week, a trade official said, adding that the department will continue announcing “tranches” on a rolling basis. The 61 exemptions amount to about one per cent of the steel covered by the tariffs.

“What we are trying to do is get these things rolled out as quickly as we can,” a US trade official told reporters.

The 61 exemptions were chosen from about 500-600 requests made by individual companies, including European conglomerate Arcelor and Anglo-Dutch group Corus, for specific categories of steel.

There were an initial 1,200 requests, but the other 600 requests have either been withdrawn or were already excluded as part of the initial announcement on March 5, when President George W. Bush imposed the tariffs on imported steel under a US trade law known as Section 201.

The official said there would likely be more exemptions announced between now and July 3, the administration’s deadline for finishing the review.

The products to be excluded cover a broad range of steel products, including certain types of plate, hot-rolled products, cold-rolled products, stainless steel bar, stainless steel wire rod, tin mill products, welded pipe and tube, and stainless steel bar, Commerce Department said.

The trade official said about 135,000 tons of steel in these 61 categories were imported into the US last year. The US and its trading partners are at loggerheads over tariffs of up to 30 per cent that the Bush administration put in place in March to protect ailing US steel mills from foreign competition.—AFP