The Commerce Department released a “strategic plan” to boost American competitiveness on March 28. It is long on buzzwords and short on specifics. The plan identifies some opportunities to boost American competitiveness. But it focuses too much on government subsidies and protection of entrenched domestic industries and not enough on playing to America’s most important […]
Too much went on last week to limit this week’s column to a single issue. The Ukraine war touches everything these days, including almost all recent developments on the trade front. It was a week that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, was “not entirely uneventful.” First, the NATO summit meeting took on issues that have divided Europe […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz On Feb. 10, the Bureau of Industry and Security of the Commerce Department published a request for public comments concerning steel and aluminum exclusions under the Section 232 tariffs and quotas. Comments are due in about a week (March 28). The request for public comments did not originate from the […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz (Editor’s note: The following views are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Steel Market Update.) On Friday, President Biden announced that the United States would end “Most Favored Nation” status, termed “PNTR” in the United States, for Russia, a member of the World Trade […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz (Editor’s note: The following views are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Steel Market Update.) A bit over a week into the new world order (i.e., the Russian invasion of Ukraine) and things are proceeding, but slowly. We have all been following the conflict—but […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz Albert Einstein is reputed to have said that time is the “fourth dimension” because you cannot tell where you are except by knowing “when” you are. The onset of war in Europe is “when” we are right now. As I write, there is a battle for control of Kyiv. Because […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz At last week’s Tampa Steel Conference, I participated with three colleagues in a broad-ranging discussion on international trade issues affecting steel producers and users. We covered quite a few issues. One of these was related to so-called “overcapacity” in steel production around the world. As those who have read my […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz On Feb. 7, the United States and Japan announced their long-expected deal to replace most of the Section 232 tariffs on steel (25%) with a tariff rate quota or TRQ. The overall quota from Japan will be about 1.25 million metric tons per year, which is far smaller than imports […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The White House released a long-awaited decision on the future of special safeguard remedies for the solar industry on Friday. The decision may provide a glimpse into the trade philosophy of the Biden administration. First, a bit of background. The Trump-era tariffs began in January 2018 with decisions under the […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz We are hearing a lot about “managed trade” these days from economists, pundits and politicians. It’s time to step back and think about the pros and cons of that concept. First, we should define the term “managed trade.” Trade is usually conducted between private parties for their mutual gain. Governments […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The U.S. and the UK recently announced the start of talks to eliminate or at least reduce the impact of Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. Since 2018, the UK, first as part of the European Union and since the start of 2021 the UK alone, has been subject […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz Tomorrow in Geneva, the U.S., Russia and Ukraine will start talks that could defuse, or not, the threat of war in Europe. Of course, a war has been going on between Russia and Ukraine for a while. In 2013, Viktor Yanukovich, then Ukraine’s president, rejected an agreement that would have […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz Last week, the Supreme Court issued two important preliminary rulings in cases that challenged the authority of the Executive Branch to require vaccinations for workers. In one, the Court ruled 6-3 that the Secretary of Labor (through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA) probably lacked the authority to […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz It’s a new year and a new start on many things. COVID does not appear to be one of them, but China relations may be. At the beginning of 2020, China and the U.S. agreed to settle some of their trade differences by inking a deal that reduced some U.S. […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz This is the last trade and tariff update for 2021, definitely an eventful year. We have gone from a riot at the Capitol, to a surge in COVID, widespread vaccinations (but still not enough for “herd immunity,” whatever that is), more foreign policy crises in Taiwan, China, Ukraine, Afghanistan, historic […]
On Friday, the Labor Department announced the inflation rate for November. At 0.8%, it was a tick lower than the October inflation rate of 0.9%. But most observers paid more attention to the annual rate of inflation. At 6.8% compared to prices one year ago, the inflation rate was the highest it’s been since 1982. […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The global situation is changing under our feet (and noses). There is much to unpack, but the trend is clearly disturbing. First, Russia has massed between 100,000 and 200,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. No one is talking publicly about why that is happening, but the obvious concern is […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The COP26 Glasgow conference on climate change just ended, yesterday, a day later than scheduled. The conference needed the extra day to hammer out a joint communiqué on what was agreed to and next steps. At the last moment, India threatened to torpedo the agreement because it contained strong language about phasing […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz Last Wednesday, it was my pleasure to join many readers on the latest Steel Market Update Community Chat. After a brief rundown of current issues affecting the steel sector and its customers, we had a lively round of questions, refereed by SMU Senior Editor Michael Cowden. We didn’t get to […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz I summarized the newly announced trade deals between the United States and the European Union last week. I use the plural because a lot of issues were addressed in the statements that followed. Today’s column evaluates a few of the trends that are visible from these statements – notably on […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz At the last minute, the U.S. and EU announced a deal to keep the tariff wars from getting worse. Yesterday, at the G20 meeting in Rome, the two sides announced an agreement that will prevent major retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to Europe from going into effect on Dec. 1. […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has been traveling. She has a lot on her plate. In an effort to attract allies to the United States’ plan to rein in China, the U.S. has floated a proposal, according to reports, to replace the 25% steel and 10% aluminum tariffs with a […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz I used to love a PBS show called Connections. The title is still around, and I recall an episode years ago that explored the Space Shuttle. Thousands of “connections” were necessary before the spacecraft became a reality: chemistries to make substances capable of withstanding re-entry temperatures, power systems for rockets, […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz A reader turned me on to a recent column by former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. I have known Ambassador Lighthizer for quite a few years now. He is smart and an able advocate. But that does not mean we see eye to eye. The column, which appeared in the […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz While Section 232 has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years, the antidumping and countervailing duty laws have been the mainstay of protecting domestic industries from steel to aluminum to solar panels to auto parts for many years. In the runup to the 2020 election, the Commerce […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The Section 232 tariffs are uppermost on people’s minds again, according to questions I’m getting from readers. My view is that the tariffs (and quotas and “monitoring”) have remained because of politics and the lack of ideas for reconciling the irreconcilable. We need a policy that protects domestic steel (and […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The announcement last week that the U.S. would work to provide secret technology to Australia for that country to build and operate nuclear-powered submarines turned heads in the United States, but blew minds in France. The nuclear sub deal also terminated a $66 billion deal for France to supply diesel-powered […]
The end of summer marks a return to normal in Washington. Congress is back, and so are the president’s cabinet and advisors. This is the time of year for officials to float new ideas. In the international trade arena, American business groups grew increasingly impatient with the lack of ideas on resetting the economic relationship […]
I was pleased to see many of you this past week in Atlanta at the SMU Steel Summit. It is certainly one of the largest (and most significant) steel conferences in the United States. This year was a first – a hybrid conference, with about 800 in-person attendees and 300 virtual. I doubt it will […]
Over the last week or so, statistics have emerged about the surge in capacity utilization of the steel industry in the United States. Since Jan. 1, the American Iron and Steel Industry reports, domestic steelmakers have operated at a capacity utilization rate of 80.1%. In the most recent week reported, ending Aug. 7, capacity utilization was 84.8%, […]