Foreign Steel Imports Up in January?

Imports of steel products into the United States appear to have increased in January, based on Commerce Department license data. Precisely how much is difficult to calculate, as quotas on imports of semifinished steel pull licenses forward and skew the data. The 1.7 million tons of semifinished imports licensed in January by companies seeking to max out the quarterly quotas will be offset by much lower totals in the following two months, as they have in previous quarters.

However, on a preliminary basis, finished steel imports in January show a nearly 24 percent increase when comparing January licenses totaling 1.67 million tons to the final December imports of 1.35 million tons. Note that when the final Census data for January is published in the coming weeks, finished steel imports are likely to be more modest, based on the three-month moving average of 1.4 million tons.