Final Thoughts

May 24, 2017

During the Section 232 hearing at the Department of Commerce yesterday, Wilbur Ross told U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH) that his report on steel Section 232 will be on the President’s desk by the end of June. This coincides with the prognostication of trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz who felt the President could react by the end of July.

We have placed a number of the speakers testimony in front of the US DOC panel regarding Section 232 on our blog which can be found on our home page: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com. We will continue to post information on our blog as it becomes available.

For those of you who follow Steel Market Update on Twitter @SMUSteel I probably posted 20 tweets as the Section 232 hearing was happening. I try to use our Twitter feed to get the word out quickly on matters of importance to the industry.

We have gotten a commitment from William Gaskin, President Emeritus (just retired a few days ago) Precision Metal Forming Association. The PMA is comprised of 900 fabricators and we welcome Mr. Gaskin as part of our Trade Panel. He will join Philip Bell of the Steel Manufacturers Association, Daniel Pearson of Cato Institute and former ITC chairman and Lewis Leibowitz. The topic of discussion will be what is free and fair trade? You can join us at the SMU Steel Summit Conference at the end of August (28-30) in Atlanta, Georgia. Details can be found by clicking here or going to: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel-Summit

We have a verbal confirmation from our final Keynote Speaker and we are waiting for the final release by CNN so that we can announce the speaker. I highly recommend that you make return flight arrangements for 5 PM or later so as to not miss our final two segments. The final Keynote Speaker will begin around 1 PM and will end around 2:30 PM. We will finish the conference with a panel of young people who will talk about the challenges and opportunities of attracting young talent to work in the steel and manufacturing industries. We will announce the panelists in the coming days.

We still have a few seats available for the June 22-23, 2017 Steel 101 workshop which will be held in Ontario, California and will include a tour of the California Steel Industries steel mill. Details can be found here or www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel101.

Monday is Memorial Day here in the United States which means Steel Market Update will not be publishing a newsletter on Sunday evening. Our next issue will be on Tuesday, May 30th. Enjoy your time with family and friends. Me, I’m going to hit the beach…

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

John Packard, Publisher