Steel Mills
US Steel's Mario Longhi on Current Trade Cases
Written by Sandy Williams
November 2, 2016
US Steel has been at the forefront of initiating trade cases and working to strengthen enforcement laws. During the US Steel earnings call, CEO Mario Longhi made the following comments on trade.
“We are pleased with the progress we have made so far on the trade front, but much more work needs to be done to truly create a sustainably fair and level playing field.”
“The rulings issued earlier this year in the three Flat-Rolled cases that we filed in 2015 are a step in the right direction in the application and enforcement of our trade loss. We are continuing to utilize all the tools available to us as demonstrated by our Section 337 filing against Chinese steel producers and distributors, and the circumvention actions filed against Chinese companies who are routing products through Vietnam in order to avoid tariffs.”
On the 337 trade case:
“Trade cases, the outcomes of trade cases normally are a penalty, a premium that is imposed upon the company’s countries and products. The difference here is that the penalty is the different one, which is blocking the – those folks from being able to participate in this market for quite a long period of time. And it’s basically for all products. So that is a fundamental difference between the two approaches.”
On the surge in trade cases in Europe:
“Europe was sort of late. The efforts that we were putting in this concept of addressing on fair trade here in the United States, we were doing the very same thing over there at the same time. And it seems like it took progress here in the U.S. to begin to be more visible and it certainly helped them, the Europeans, see that the damage over there was equivalent to what was happening here. So finally, it began to take hold coming into the second quarter. And I think that there is much more robust intensity in the way in which people are looking at that. So some of the trade cases were – they actually moved a lot quicker in Europe than they did here. And the potential for more is certainly higher now than it has been in the recent past. So the focus is there, Eurofer is working very effectively now with the EU. So if things continue to go in this direction, we should see an even better environment going forward.”
Sandy Williams
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