Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts & Last Minute HR Trade Case Announcement

September 23, 2015

The following press release came out late this afternoon and we caught it early this evening. The announcement is about the hot rolled trade cases and whether the US International Trade Commission (ITC) found enough evidence to determine that the probability exists that the U.S. steel industry was “materially damaged” by hot rolled exports from Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Our expectation has been that the ITC would find there was enough to move the trade suits forward. Here is what the ITC press release had to say:

The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) today determined that there is a reasonable indication that a U.S. industry is materially injured by reason of imports of certain hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom that are allegedly sold in the United States at less than fair value and allegedly subsidized by the governments of Brazil, Korea, and Turkey.

Chairman Meredith M. Broadbent, Vice Chairman Dean A. Pinkert, and Commissioners Irving A. Williamson, David S. Johanson, and Rhonda K. Schmidtlein voted in the affirmative. Commissioner F. Scott Kieff did not participate in these investigations.

As a result of the Commission’s affirmative determinations, the U.S. Department of Commerce will continue to conduct its investigations on imports of these products from Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, with its preliminary countervailing duty determinations due on or about November 4, 2015, and its preliminary antidumping duty determinations due on or about January 18, 2016.

More than likely the dates for preliminary determinations regarding countervailing duty and antidumping will be moved out 45 days as the mills will most likely request a delay. But, for now, the dates to remember are November 4th (countervailing duty) and January 18, 2016 (antidumping).

The first trade suit, which was for CORE products (galvanized and Galvalume in particular) has already been extended and the preliminary determination for countervailing duty is November 2, 2015. At the same time, or slightly before, will be the ruling on critical circumstances on coated products from China, Korea, Italy, India and Taiwan.

Ultimately, these trade suits are going to make 2016 a very interesting and potentially volatile year.

That’s all for tonight. We will have a number of articles in Sunday’s edition of SMU regarding our steel survey which was conducted throughout this week.

As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, Publisher