U.S. steel executives urge duties on some imports from South Korea

[onehandle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. trade officials should slap duties on super-cheap imports of steel products from South Korea and Turkey, steel industry executives, unions and pro-steel lawmakers said on Tuesday.

Industry boosters urged the Commerce Department to reverse preliminary decisions against complaints by steelmakers with operations in the United States, warning the industry was under threat from imports which were often priced below cost and violated international trade laws.

"The steel industry could be on the verge of elimination," United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard told a meeting of the Congressional Steel Caucus.

Caucus chair Tim Murphy said Commerce should impose duties on imports of steel tube for the oil and gas industry from South Korea and Turkey, and on rebar from Turkey.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/us-usatrade-steel-idUSBREA2O1KS20140325

[doc03]

1. Sorry Mr. Garard but neither party in this country gives a flying ---- about saving steel

jobs. I worked in the steel industry for 40 years and watched our industry be destroyed buy the SOBs. Bill Clinton
and Al Gore came to Weirton West Virginia 20 years ago and promised to stop illegal dumping and didn't do anything but
pass NAFTA and made things even worse. George Bush put tariffs on illeagal imports then the next day started lifting them.

[Populist_Prole]

2. I wish it were so but it'll never happen

Even though tariffs are what we need, the plutocrats controlling the country has been picking winners and losers. All they care about protecting are paper-pusher "industries".

[doc03]

3. You got that right. The Republicans and Democrats

have both betrayed the steel industry. There is an electric arc furnace 20 miles from me that has been sitting idol for 5 years and at the same time we are importing cheap illegal foreign steel. With the boom in gas drilling in the USA the steel industry should be running at capacity today.

[davidpdx]

4. Here's another article that explains it a bit better

snip

“The evidence in this case clearly shows that OCTG products are being illegally dumped in what remains the most open and attractive market in the world at prices below fair value and in ways designed to circumvent our trade laws,” the CEO was due to say in his testimony. Republican Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania’s 18th district and chairman of the Congressional Steel Caucus, convened the hearing in Washington today.

Steelmakers including U.S. Steel, the biggest domestic producer of pipes and tubes sold to oil and gas extracting companies, known as oil-country tubular goods or OCTG, stand to lose profits from continued imports of the products if they are sold more cheaply than domestic producers can make them. Sales of the products have bolstered profitability at U.S. Steel, representing 48 percent of the company’s 2013 operating income, as well as other steelmakers such as Charlotte, North Carolina-based Nucor Corp., which sells rolled steel to companies that form the metal into pipes.

The Commerce Department announced a preliminary ruling last month that imposed anti-dumping duties on imports from eight countries but excluded South Korea. A final determination may be made in July, with the U.S. International Trade Commission making a final decision by Aug. 21, the department said in a statement.

Dumping occurs when a foreign company sells a product in the U.S. at less than its fair value, according to the department. Last month’s decision applied import tariffs from India, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/u-s-steel-says-south-korean-companies-are-dumping-pipes.html

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The duties have been placed against several countries, but the decision against South Korea was put until the full report comes out in July. My guess is that they want to make sure they have a strong case for duties given the free-trade agreement between the two countries. I don't know of we have an FTA with any of the other countries listed.

One thing to keep in mind if the duties are found to not justified the country which they were placed against can put a retaliatory duty of equal value on another product.