Steel Products

Zekelman Industries takes aim at Mexico with lawsuit, trade petitions

Written by Ethan Bernard

October 22, 2024

Zekelman Industries has filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., against the Republic of Mexico for allegedly violating trade agreements and dumping steel in the US.

The Chicago-based pipe and tube maker filed Monday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit alleges that “Mexico’s conduct threatens the national security of the United States by damaging domestic steel producers,” according to a company statement.

Further, Zekelman said the violations forced it to close a tube facility in Long Beach, Calif., in 2022, and another in Chicago (slated to close in 2025). More than 400 workers lost their jobs in the process.

“Mexico is violating trade agreements, and the Biden Administration is failing to enforce these rules,” Barry Zekelman, executive chairman and CEO, said in the statement.

“The American steel industry is being damaged, and American workers are paying a price,” he added.

The company said the “melt-and-pour” requirement issued in July by the Biden administration “will have little to no effect on surging Mexican imports of steel.”

Additional petitions

At the same time, the company has also filed other petitions at the national and state level, specifically with the state of Pennsylvania.

On the national level, Zekelman filed a Section 232 petition with the US Office of Homeland Security. The petition seeks to compel Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to use the Office of Trade Relations to enforce trade agreements between the two countries.

At the state level, a Petition for Determination of Discrimination was filed in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. It states that Mexico is discriminating against steel conduit made in Pennsylvania and violating the “Pennsylvania Trade Practices Act (PTPA).”

The act was implemented in 1968 to protect steel and aluminum products made in the state.

It made it unlawful for any public agency “to specify, purchase, or permit to be furnished or used, in any public works, aluminum or steel products made in a foreign country which has been determined as discriminating by the Court.”

Background

Though both are signatories of the USMCA trade agreement, tensions between the US and Mexico have been mounting for some time on the supposed surge of Mexican steel imports into the US, which Mexico disputes.

To read an op-ed filed by Barry Zekelman on this issue last month, click here.

To read an opposing point of view from Salvador Quesada Salinas, director general of Mexico’s steel trade group Canacero, published at the end of August, click here.

When asked for comment on the lawsuit, Canacero pointed to the article above.

Ethan Bernard

Ethan Bernard is managing editor for Steel Market Update. He previously worked for American Metal Market as a copy editor in the New York office for two years, starting in 2008. Later, he copy edited AMM’s monthly magazine on a freelance basis from 2015 until 2017. With experience in financial copywriting and textbook publishing, he holds a BA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, and an MFA. in Creative Writing from New York University. He can be reached at ethan@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7871.

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