September 3, 2026 9:19AM # ATVs Get Tariff Relief. The UTV Parked Next to It Doesn’t. By [Clark Packard](https://www.cato.org/people/clark-packard) and [Alfredo Carrillo Obregon](https://www.cato.org/people/alfredo-carrillo-obregon) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... On August 31, *Politico*’s “Weekly Trade” [newsletter](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-trade) flagged a wrinkle in the recent metal tariff pronouncements: In early June, President Trump [issued a proclamation](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/04/2026-11314/further-adjusting-the-tariff-regimes-for-imports-of-aluminum-steel-and-copper-into-the-united-states) adjusting the Section 232 “national security” tariffs to cut rates to 15 percent on a small list of agricultural machinery, including all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). Utility-terrain vehicles (UTVs)—effectively the same machinery except UTVs are enclosed and contain a cargo bed [used by farmers and ranchers](https://can-am.brp.com/off-road/us/en/models/usages/ranching-farming/best-atv-sxs-utv-for-farm.html) to move feed, fencing, and tools across ground a pickup truck cannot handle—were left at the full derivative rate of 25 percent. During the first Trump administration, American firms could request tariff relief under an exclusions process. Although slow, relatively opaque, and [tilted toward domestic producers](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/steeled-protectionism) who filed objections, at least the process existed. This time, the Trump administration’s Commerce Department (DOC) created an inclusion [process](https://www.cato.org/blog/tariff-inclusion-process-comes-high-costs-absurd-outcomes-extra-cronyism) that lets domestic producers and their trade associations sweep more downstream products into the “national security” tariffs. One action in August 2025 added more than [400 tariff lines](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/19/2025-15819/adoption-and-procedures-of-the-section-232-steel-and-aluminum-tariff-inclusions-process). The tariff codes [associated](https://saveworkingvehicles.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/SAWV__232-Comment-Letter.pdf) with ATVs and UTVs were swept into the steel tariffs’ coverage that month, after the DOC accepted [a petition from Nucor](https://www.regulations.gov/document/BIS-2025-0023-0048)—the largest [US steel producer](https://worldsteel.org/data/top-steel-producers/) by volume. As with other accepted submissions, the DOC did not provide a reason for accepting this request. Thus, ATVs and UTVs (and other vehicles covered by these tariff codes, including golf carts) became subject to the administration’s “national security” protectionism, creating additional costs for farmers already under [significant economic pressure](https://www.agdaily.com/insights/high-input-costs-continue-weigh-farmers-sentiments/) for no discernible reason. As Carrillo Obregon and Cato’s Eli Deluca [documented](https://www.cato.org/blog/national-security-tariffs-tubas-fridges-sofas) last month, the DOC opened [comments](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/06/2026-15961/request-for-public-comments-on-the-proposed-implementation-of-duties-on-additional-aluminum-steel) on taxing metal derivative imports, including brass and wind instruments, floor safes, and fire extinguishers. The case for taxing imported tubas on national security grounds is not obvious (to put it mildly). But one entry is worth noting: self-loading and self-unloading trailers and semitrailers for agricultural purposes. In June, the Trump administration cut (but did not eliminate) tariffs on farm equipment because farmers were getting squeezed; a few months later, the administration is proposing to increase costs for the same constituency with no true justification. **Meanwhile, Prices Continue to Climb** According to a [SteelBenchmarker](https://steelbenchmarker.com/history.pdf) report from August 26, US hot-rolled band hit $1,284 per metric ton against $840 in Western Europe and $505 on the world export market—premiums of roughly 53 and 154 percent that hamstring American manufacturing. We [noted](https://www.cato.org/blog/steel-prices-rise-again-amid-persistent-us-tariffs) in July that domestic hot-rolled had reached its highest level since 2023. It has since climbed more than 6 percent. This is not about input costs. Over the same period, scrap—primary feedstock for the electric arc furnaces that make most American steel—moved the other way: Shredded scrap slipped from $419 to $410 per metric ton (2 percent), and No.1 heavy melting dropped from $360 to $346 (4 percent). Inputs are falling while finished products climb. That widening gap is the tariff, and it lands almost entirely on domestic steel consumers. **The Fundamental Problem** None of these various tariffs are improved through additional layers of complexity and arbitrariness. When the Trump administration unilaterally taxes materials nearly every American manufacturer uses, it creates arbitrary boundaries—which vehicle counts as farm equipment, which trailer, or which bass instrument—usually settled by whoever can afford Washington representation. The Trump administration [claims](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-increases-section-232-tariffs-on-steel-and-aluminum/) that its “national security” tariffs on metals will bolster domestic manufacturing employment, but the arithmetic doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. When the George W. Bush administration levied steel tariffs in 2002, steel-consuming industries [employed](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/steeled-protectionism) roughly 12.8 million Americans against 170,000 in steel production—a ratio of 57 to 1. Economist Lydia Cox [estimated](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/steeled-protectionism#2000-today-safeguards-strengthened-buy-american-mandates-national-security-protectionism) that those tariffs destroyed approximately 168,000 jobs in steel-using industries. Cox, along with separate [research](https://www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/publications/2022/working-paper/local-labor-market-effects-2002-bush-steel-tariffs) from James Lake and Ding Liu, found the 2002 steel tariffs’ damage to be highly persistent, continuing for years after the tariffs were lifted. In 2025, we [calculated](https://www.cato.org/blog/more-costly-steel-tariffs-horizon) that steel-consuming manufacturing industries employ about 46 times as many workers as steel production. Adding workers in nonmanufacturing, steel-consuming industries such as construction pushes the ratio much higher. Every one of these fights is a symptom of the same disease. A rancher in Idaho should not need a trade lawyer to find out whether the machine he uses to haul fencing counts as agricultural equipment. That is what the current tariff environment is producing—an endless series of line-drawing exercises. Reviving an exclusions process would marginally improve the system. But it would not make it defensible. The administration keeps trying to fine-tune tariffs, but that is a hopeless endeavor, driven more by short-term political considerations than sound economics. The right answer is to lift the misguided “national security” tariffs on various metals and their derivatives. ##### Related Tags [IEEPA Tariffs](https://www.cato.org/ieepa), [Economics](https://www.cato.org/economics), [Trade Policy](https://www.cato.org/trade-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).