Washington Considers More Tariffs on Steel Imports

By Matthew McMullan
May 23 2016 |
A view of U.S. Steel’s Gary Works mill in Gary, Indiana. | Photo by Eric Allix Rogers

The ITC will be hearing testimony this week on hot-rolled and corrosion-resistant steel.

Last week, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced tariffs that were described as “massive” on imports of cold-rolled steel from China. Cold-rolled steel is the kind of steel that ends up in cars and appliances.

This week, the ITC will be hearing testimony about the alleged dumping of two more types of steel: hot-rolled and corrosion-resistant steel.

Here’s hoping for big tariffs.

But let's wait a second. Why did cold-rolled steel from China earn such big tariffs? Because the Chinese government heavily subsidizes the Chinese steel industry, which is the biggest in the world by far. Many of its biggest steel companies are in fact state-owned enterprises.

While there’s no demand in is domestic market for its steel, it’s been selling it abroad on the cheap, and none of this has slowed Chinese steel production. Imports, in turn, captured a large part of the American market in 2015. And there were thousands of layoffs across the American steel industry.

As one American steel executive put it:

“The Chinese government is a company disguised as a country and they are waging economic war on the United States.”

We’ll be keeping an eye on the ITC hearings on hot-rolled and corrosion-resistant steel, and we’ll keep you posted on what happens. Meanwhile, support is growing for a call to ban Chinese steel imports altogether.