Elon Musk’s The Boring Company has asked the Trump administration to exempt it from paying tariffs on tunneling equipment imported from China.
In its letter, The Boring Company asked the U.S. Trade Representative to exempt parts including cutterheads, screw conveyors and related machinery. The company says that these parts are only readily available from China and that without them, a planned tunnel between Washington and New York could be significantly delayed. In fact, a delay of one to two years is claimed in the letter, Reuters reports.
Perhaps in an attempt to get on Trump’s good side, The Boring Company’s letter went on to state that the firm plans on ultimately developing and manufacturing its own tunnel boring machines and that it plans to “restore the now-dormant American tunnel boring machine industry.”
Additionally, the company asserts that the machines it will use in the interim are made up primarily of components from the United States.
The Boring Company’s business model is “predicated upon substantially reducing the cost of tunneling,” the letter reads, adding that tunneling is not one of the 10 sectors identified in China’s ‘Made in 2025’ plan which is viewed as a threat to Trump’s trade goals.
Musk’s tunneling business was selected to build a Loop system between O’Hare Airport and downtown Chicago a couple of months ago.
Unlike the high-speed Hyperloop, the Loop consists of 16-passenger sleds that travel through tunnels at roughly 100 mph (160 km/h). The total cost of the project has been pegged at roughly $1 billion.
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