Posted on 18 Apr 2016
During the second day of hearings of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Department of Commerce (DOC), Gibson pointed out that the government should vigorously enforce trade laws to fight against dumping of cheaper steel products and implementation of market-distorting policies and practices by other steel producing nations, especially China. He urged the government to make best use of all means available under the country’s trade laws to provide immediate relief to the US steel industry from impacts of surging imports.
The AISI Chief noted that China must be treated as a non-market economy for antidumping purposes. Granting of the status to China before it has truly become one will undermine the effectiveness of US trade laws, he added. Meantime, China has claimed that it should be automatically granted the status upon completion of 15 years of its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December this year. Leading manufacturing associations have already opposed, stating that China has not met the basic requirements set forth by the US statutes and the DOC.
According to Gibson, China accounts for more than half of the global steel overcapacity. Out of the estimated global steel overcapacity of 700 million metric tonnes, over 424 million metric tonnes of overcapacity is located in China.
The US is not only impacted by the direct dumping of steel products from China. The steel exported to third countries get processed into various steel products, which are then exported to the US. For instance, Chinese billets processed into long products in Turkey and Chinese flat-rolled steel processed into pipe products in Korea are largely exported to the US market.
