Final Thoughts

Tariffs. Tariffs. Tariffs. That’s what’s on people’s minds. Things move pretty fast. The sentence you are about to read might’ve been changed 20 times to adapt to the changing news. Well, it looks like tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China are a go.  By executive order on Saturday, Trump enacted 25% tariffs on Canada (except for Canadian “energy resources,” which are 10%), 25% on Mexico, and 10% on China. They go into effect on Tuesday. Trump had on Friday also floated the possibility of tariffs on the EU.

Buckle up!

All the nuts and bolts, and what that all means for steel… it’s hard to determine concretely. Still, as major trading partners, there’s bound to be a big impact. Think Canadian crude and Mexican auto parts, for example. With so much uncharted territory ahead, and the very real chance Trump could scoop the conference with another big announcement, it might be helpful to take a look back.

Origin story

SMU’s collaboration with Port Tampa Bay started off when SMU founder John Packard served as master or ceremonies for the event in 2019.

The partnership deepened during the Covid years. SMU was fresh off our “virtual” Steel Summit of 2020. The folks in Tampa liked how we virtually conducted ourselves, and thought we would be a good collaboration partner. So in 2021 we teamed up for a “virtual” Tampa Steel Conference.

In 2022, we were back in person. But we were starting to find out that the post-pandemic world was a different place than the pre-pandemic one. While Covid might have been dying down, the war in Ukraine was about to heat up.

None other than Cleveland-Cliffs’ top executive, Lourenco Goncalves, said at the conference that war was coming. He hinted that he had that on good authority from high-ranking sources in DC.

That was not the consensus view. Goncalves made those remarks on Feb. 16, 2022. About a week later, on Feb. 24, Russia launched its full-scale invasion or Ukraine.

Some other hot-button issues included supply chain snarls, chip shortages… And one shortage 2022 did not have was significant issues to speak about.

Kicking off 2025

Hard to believe that was three years ago. While Covid-19 has retreated into the background, the war in Ukraine is still very much with us. In general, while we are no longer “virtual,” the world of 2019 seems very, very far away in every conceivable sense.

And now we have clearly entered a new period: Trump, the Return. Our CRU colleague Josh Spoores shared an excerpt from a book by Marko Papic called Geopolitical Alpha – An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future. It details “Trump’s Seven Steps of Maximum Pressure.” For reference, with the tariffs we are probably on “Step Three: Punch Someone in the Mouth.” A lot of countries might soon be receiving a knuckle sandwich.

Timothy C. Brightbill, Wiley Rein LLP partner and co-chair, International Trade Practice, will be speaking on Monday in Tampa about Trump, trade, tariffs, and their impact on the market. That landscape is changing from day to day – at times from hour to hour – and we’re guessing that presentation will be revised right up until showtime.

On Tuesday, we’ll feature an “Analyst Roundtable: Steel Experts Forecast for 2025… and Beyond!” Bill Peterson, senior analyst of metals and mining and clean tech at JP Morgan, and the previously mentioned Josh Spoores, CRU principal analyst, will try to read the future from their best crystal ball as to what’s in store this year in steel.

As far as beyond 2025? Right now, we are just focusing on having the most up-to-date tariff info for our Sunday newsletter!

Lots more to offer

Of course, those are just two examples. We’ve got Fireside Chats with leading steel executives, panelists up and down the steel supply chain, and plenty of opportunities to buttonhole fellow attendees and get their latest impressions on the market.

We don’t know exactly what will happen by the time the first session kicks off on Monday. But we feel it’s not an exaggeration to say that this is going to be one action-packed conference.

We can’t wait to see all of you there!

PS – Here’s a little secret we’ve been keeping. We take walk-ins. So if you’re reading this now and haven’t registered for Tampa Steel, there is still time. You can register here. You might miss the networking reception on Sunday evening. But you’ll get all of the great conference programming on Monday and Tuesday. A full agenda is here.