CTH: Last year President Donald Trump requested a national security Section 232 trade-investigation, to conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce and Secretary Wilbur Ross, specifically focusing on U.S. steel and aluminum manufacturing.
The discussion continued last week as President Trump met with a group of republican and democrat members of congress to talk about trade policy and focus attention on the lack of American steel and aluminum production. [The responses from the republican participants was very enlightening and disappointing.]
On Friday Commerce Secretary completed the industrial review and provided President Trump with trade recommendations to consider given the nature of the national security compromise. See Outline Here.
Recommendations of the Steel Report: Secretary Ross has recommended to the President that he consider the following alternative remedies to address the problem of steel imports:
- A global tariff of at least 24% on all steel imports from all countries, or
- A tariff of at least 53% on all steel imports from 12 countries (Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam) with a quota by product on steel imports from all other countries equal to 100% of their 2017 exports to the United States, or
- A quota on all steel products from all countries equal to 63% of each country’s 2017 exports to the United States. MORE
Careful what you wish for. Tariffs work both ways
While the Left would have us rage against clownish, impotent election manipulation by Russians, Trump is focused on actual, hostile market manipulation by China and others who have gotten used to America selling itself out. Pennsylvania, Trump has not forgotten you.
Cheap foreign steel is garbage, imported steel with parity to domestic stock is far more expensive than American. Set quality standards for being void free, hardness, etc for differing construction projects and you wouldn’t need a tariff.
@ Stop2think
Yes, yes they do, and the overwhelming evidence points to the OTHER guys receiving the lion’s share of the benefits.To wit, these are the same oligarch’s that sent those industries over there in search of cheap/slave labor, so it is to their advantage to keep their unfair tariffs in place. Trump knows this and is in the process of putting the world on notice; “Two can play this game.”
Zhytamyr
There are standards. SAE, AMS,
Lazlo used to work in the Forestry trade.
I have worn out and have broken cheap steel shovels and axes from other countries.
Give me American Steel
Some years back our company bought many miles of steel pipe from Turkey. I think it was about 40″ diameter. From what I remember, it wasn’t available (at the time)from any US manufacturers. We are required to know the metallurgy of the steel and the longitudinal welds have to meet some pretty strict standards. Made me sad we had to go to Turkey to get it.
@Bad-Brad
Yes there are, and a significant portion of cheap imported steel that is nominally rated for use is not in fact safe or at stated quality. A competitor here, a couple years ago, had to tear down and start over on a project when at the 5th floor b/c about a quarter of his i-beams had voids and started failing. I have seen a lot of tear downs and rebuilds with import steel because they were not at stated quality. I’m not an ironworker, I’m an electrical hand, however I still see enough of this to make an informed decision.
Next town over we had kaiser steel.my dad worked there most of his life.great compny with good pay and medical. But california drove them out with all the regulations and they sold it to china.very sad day for everyone.now a race track is in its place.😣..
Zhytamyr
Sounds like a process issue. Very cheap and easy to NDT
Nice pile of either #4 or #5 re-bar.
That stuff is tuff.You can hardly
cut it with a hacksaw.We poured a 15′
thick foundation for a fly ash silo at
a coal fired power plant.It had #18 {2 1/4″}
bars in the bottom mat…