Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
May 30, 2018
It has been an incredibly busy day. The Trump administration was busy taking care of our “friends…” Canada, Mexico and the European Union are no longer excluded from the 232 tariffs. I got a note from a mill friend of mine who laid out the scenario as he saw it:
“The irony of this whole thing is that Trump has now given an advantage to the countries that are traditional dumpers, like Russia, and a disadvantage to good trading partners like Canada by putting the same penalties on them. If you compare coated, Russia has a low cost of production and certainly would have lost a trade case because they often resort to very aggressive prices when selling. Now they can sell unlimited volume with a 25 percent duty on a low cost. Brazil has lost all trade cases in flat, and surely would have lost a coated case, too. But they can sell duty free under a quota. Canada never sold cheap steel, has an integrated supply chain within NAFTA, would not have had a dumping case, yet it is at a huge disadvantage over those other two!”
This afternoon, Steel Market Update revised our SMU Price Momentum Indicator to “Higher” from Neutral. The reason being the Trump administration manipulation of the steel supply. I will have more on this in Sunday evening’s issue of SMU.
Tomorrow will be a busy day for Steel Market Update. Your feedback on what is happening in the market is much appreciated.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
John Packard
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Final thoughts
SMU has heard from some larger buyers who have stepped back into the market to buy at prices that, if not at a bottom, they assess to be close to one. Is it enough to stretch out lead times and send prices upward again? Or do we continue to scrape along the mid-$600s per short ton (st) as we have been doing for most of the last month?
Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves had some insightful things to say today about the steel market and about a conference we suspect might be Steel Summit.
Final thoughts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, when you add in some commentary from respected peers in the steel industry to those pictures, that may shoot you up to five thousand words, at least. In that spirit, we’ve added some snapshots from our market survey this week, along with some comments from market participants.
Final thoughts
I thought we’d have more clarity this week on Section 232, Mexico, and a potential carve-out for steel melted and poured in Brazil. As of right now, the only official comment I have is from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).
Final thoughts
There are just 40 days left until the 2024 SMU Steel Summit gets underway on Aug. 26 at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) in Atlanta. And I’m pleased to announce that it's official now: More than 1,000 people have registered to at attend! Another big development: The desktop version of the networking app for the event has officially launched!