Category: Trade Cases

After a sunset review, antidumping and countervailing duties on cut-to-length carbon-quality plate imports from India, Indonesia, and South Korea will remain in place for another five years.

Certain welded pipe and tube products being exported from Vietnam to the US are not circumventing antidumping duties on Taiwanese pipe products, the US Department of Commerce said this week.

Last week’s indictment of former president Donald Trump has ignited a blizzard of commentary. Not much of it has looked at the implications for the global trade order. Over the next year and a half, major trade and strategic initiatives will be negotiated with adversaries as well as allies: everything from the steel and aluminum negotiations with the EU to the war in Ukraine.

An unusual clash of powerful forces is in full swing over tin mill products. An antidumping petition was filed against eight countries in January of this year, while an anti-subsidy petition was filed against imports of tin mill products from China at the same time.

An unusual clash of powerful forces is in full swing over tin mill products. This flat-rolled steel product is used to make “tin cans” that hold a huge array of food products and other metal containers sold throughout the world. Tin mill products are generally made from cold-rolled steel that is coated with tin or […]

The US Department of Commerce this week ruled that critical circumstances exist in part in the trade case investigating illegal subsidies on tin mill products from China, meaning duties may be applied retroactively. Recall that Cleveland-Cliffs and the United Steelworkers (USW) union in January filed a trade case seeking countervailing duties for tin- and chromium-coated […]

In 2021, the US and EU called a timeout on their disputes about the US “national security” steel and aluminum tariffs and the resulting retaliatory measures by the EU. The agreement back then rescinded the Section 232 tariffs and replaced them with a “tariff-rate quota” that allowed a measure of tariff-free trade. In exchange, the […]

US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai and a lead European Commission official met on Thursday in Brussels to discuss the Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum, according to a press release from the USTR. In her meeting with EC EVP Valdis Dombrovskis, “Ambassador Tai stressed the importance of both sides generating ambitious proposals in […]

US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai and a lead European Commission official met on Thursday in Brussels to discuss the Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum, according to a press release from the USTR.

Antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of steel wire rod from a handful of countries will remain in place for another five years. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) made its final decision in an expedited sunset review of the AD duties on wire rod from Belarus, Italy, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, […]

Every day, it seems, the headlines point to a general decline in the global situation. The more one reads, the more it becomes clear that our major issues are all interconnected. Addressing one will necessarily impact the others, either worsening or bettering them. Immigration is a prime example of this phenomenon. The two parties, and […]

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai will travel to Brussels next week to continue discussions on establishing a “Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum” with the European Union. Ambassador Tai will be in Belgium on July 20-21 to speak with European Commission EVP Valdis Dombrovskis. This is their second meeting in July, the USTR press […]

US-China relations have been in the news for at least the last five years. Cabinet officials are traveling to China, Chinese leaders are coming to the US, books are coming out and the European Union is dealing with the same quandary: should China be further isolated? Is the West too dependent on China? As I […]

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai met on Thursday in Cancun, Mexico, with Mexico’s Secretary of Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, where the two discussed confronting steel imports, among other issues. In a press release, the USTR said she spoke with Secretary Buenrostro regarding “the importance of addressing the recent surge of imports of steel and aluminum products, and […]

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) said Wednesday it is conducting a fact-finding investigation to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of steel and aluminum made in the US. This is in response to a letter sent by US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on June 5 requesting a Section 332 investigation in the midst of ongoing […]

Raw steel production by US mills moved higher again last week, gaining ground for the second straight week, according to data released by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) on Monday, June 26. Domestic production stood at 1,758,000 net tons during the week ended June 24, up 0.9% from 1,743,000 tons the previous week. Production is […]

Our latest survey results indicate that the round of $50/ton ($2.50/cwt) sheet price hikes have a good chance of at least stabilizing prices or increasing them modestly. To be clear, SMU does not make formal forecasts. I’m basing this on what we’re seeing in past survey results following price hikes compared to what we’re seeing […]

US rig counts dropped for the week ended June 23, while Canada’s count increased, according to the latest data from oilfield services company Baker Hughes. This marks the eighth consecutive week-over-week decline in the US and fifth consecutive weekly increase in Canada.   The total US rig count stood at 682 active rigs as of June 23, off five from the […]

The US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) is updating the antidumping duties on carbon and alloy cut-to-length steel plate imported from Belgium. In an administrative review of the AD duties, the ITA is considering the one-year period ended April 30, 2022. In its preliminary ruling, the agency set the weighted-average dumping margin at […]

The Biden administration over the last few months has articulated the need for a new global economic order. But to date, there is little in the way of ideas for implanting that order. Mostly, Katherine Tai, the US Trade Representative and Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, have spoken about what’s wrong with the economic […]

A bipartisan group of 36 members of Congress have expressed their concerns over potential tariffs on tin mill steel products. In a letter to the US International Trade Commission and Department of Commerce on June 12, the group said that the antidumping investigation on tin mill products brought forth by Cleveland-Cliffs earlier this year can […]

The US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) is updating the antidumping duties on hot-rolled steel flats from South Korea. In an administrative review of the one-year period ended Sept. 30, 2022, the ITA set preliminary dumping margins of 0% for Hyundai Steel, Posco, and 45 other Korean companies not selected for individual examination. […]

The US and European Union are working on an agreement dealing with carbon emissions in the steel industry. The impact on bilateral trade could be high. In 2021, the US and EU agreed that the US would suspend the 25% Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the EU would drop its World Trade […]

Bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress on Wednesday to level the playing field for American workers. The Leveling the Playing Field Act 2.0 would enhance US trade remedy laws to protect American workers and “combat China’s unfair, anti-free market trade practices that distort the global market,” according to a release from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). […]

The US Department of Commerce issued the final results of its expedited sunset review of antidumping (AD) duties on steel plate from three Asian countries. The agency found that allowing the duties to expire would result in the continuation of dumping at significant rates. This is the fourth sunset review of the AD duties on […]

The debt ceiling deal passed by Congress has averted either an economic catastrophe or a minor headache, depending on who you talk to. It’s more likely that a pretty serious catastrophe was averted. But there was, in my view, never a serious chance that the US would default on its sovereign debt. More likely, some […]

The US and EU affirmed their intention to reach a common framework on carbon emissions in steel and aluminum by October at the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting in Luleå, Sweden, on Wednesday.  At the meeting the EU and US said that via the Transatlantic Initiative for Sustainable Trade they are “strengthening engagement towards […]

The US will extend for another year an exemption for Ukrainian steel from Section 232 tariffs. “The United States has provided a much-needed market for the steel that Ukraine is able to export,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in statement on Wednesday, May 31. “In doing so, Americans are directly supporting the people of Ukraine, […]

Two separate developments suggest that the Biden administration may have concerns that more tariffs would damage the US economy by harming consumers.  First, we saw the president suspend action to impose additional tariffs on solar cells and modules from four countries in the face of an antidumping “circumvention” proceeding. Circumvention determines whether operations in third […]

Since 1997, the US Department of Commerce has had a regulation permitting an “expedited review” of subsidy determinations in countervailing duty investigations. The importers of subject merchandise in these cases are often denied individual subsidy rates because Commerce lacks the resources to investigate every company.  To compensate for the department’s insufficient resources, any company not […]