WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration announced new executive actions Thursday aimed at thwarting illegal foreign steel dumping into the market, which workers on the Iron Range and Minnesota politicians blame for the slowdown in the mining industry there.
The executive actions include adding more inspectors of steel imports at ports of entry and bringing on more staffers to enforce trade laws. The White House also said they will add personnel to the Commerce Department to help ensure tariffs are enforced against those who dump steel in the U.S.
The executive actions come after a visit in December from President Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough to the Iron Range to hear from some of the 2,000 people who have been laid off in the past year.
Minnesota's politicians, including Gov. Mark Dayton, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and Rep. Rick Nolan, have urged the executive branch to do more. Obama told Dayton earlier this week in a meeting at the White House that he's been more aggressive than other administrations in cracking down on steel dumping.
"These steps are urgently needed to prevent further damage to the lives and livelihoods of great people on the Iron Range," Dayton said in a statement.
Klobuchar said the next step is for Congress to pass bills to strengthen America’s trade enforcement capabilities and “ensure laid-off workers affected by steel dumping receive the support they deserve.”
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The European Union has launched new probes into imports of Chinese steel, warning that it wouldn't allow 'unfair competition' to threaten Europe's industry already crumbling under a flood of cheap imports. CCTV's reporter has talked to government officials and industry experts in Beijing on the issue.
The iron and steel industry has become the main area where China-Europe trade friction occurs.
China's Ministry of Commerce says Chinese steel makers are not engaged in any form of dumping of surplus goods into the European Union.
"Low preliminary tariffs are not evidence of dumping by China. Overcapacity is a worldwide industry problem,"
"The Chinese government and enterprises made efforts to restructure the steel industry and reduce excess capacity and these made headway," said Shen Danyang, spokesman Ministry of Commerce.
The EU market accounts for less than eight percent of China's iron and steel export market. Experts say China hopes to deal with the overcapacity together with the EU, and protectionism will only exacerbate the situation."
For Xu Xiangchun who's worked for the China Iron and Steel Association for over ten years, blaming China for the slumping iron and steel market in Europe is unfair.
Xu now works for one of China's biggest steel e-Commerce sector companies... and as one of his tasks is to deal with up-to-date steel prices everyday, he thinks the EU is not a main market of China's iron and steel export industry.
According to the Association, Asia accounts for over 70 percent of China's main export market in this industry while the EU is less than eight percent.
"The selling prices of China's steel products in the EU market is about twenty percent higher than China's domestic prices. So it's unfair to say that China's is selling below the cost of production," said Xu Xiangchun, Chief Analyst of Mysteel.com.
In recent years, the EU has frequently imposed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures against iron and steel imports from China and other exporters.
Chinese steel exports have been the subject of 37 investigations worldwide in 2015, and that equalled the probes over the previous two years.
"These anti-dumping investigation measures have produced few results in bringing down the import volume. This has shown the problem lies not in imports but in the iron and steel industry in Europe itself," said Xu.
China has seen a wave of shut downs last year in small- and medium-sized iron and steel smelters. However, State-owned enterprises really have the say in the total output.
The central government has called on them to replace outdated capacity with advanced technologies. But it will take time for these measures to have an impact.
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The U.S. Commerce Department said on Tuesday an Australian company once owned by the world's biggest miner BHP Billiton Ltd sold silicomanganese in the United States at a dumping margin of 12.03 percent, and a final decision on imposing duties on the imports would be made on March 28.
West Virginia-based Felman Production LLC has said large and increasing volumes of silicomanganese, an alloy additive used to make steel, from Tasmanian Electro Metallurgical Co (TEMCO) have "significantly undercut" U.S. prices.
BHP spun off the plant into a separate company, called South32, to shareholders in May.
The Commerce Department in September said it planned to impose preliminary duties of 11.93 percent on the goods.
In a statement on Tuesday, it said it had determined the dumping margin to be 12.03 percent. The U.S. International Trade Commission will make its final decision on March 28, it said.
The value of silicomanganese imports from Australia in 2014 was estimated at $76.9 million, it added.
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The European Commission was asked to help Europe’s steel industry, which is suffering from falling prices and cheap imports from China and Russia
Brussels: European Union regulators opened three anti-dumping investigations into Chinese steel products on Friday and imposed new duties on imports, following calls for action from industry that says thousands of jobs are at stake.
Britain, France and Germany are among the countries to have asked the European Commission to help Europe’s steel industry, which is suffering from falling prices and cheap imports from China and Russia.
On Friday, the European Commission announced investigations into whether seamless pipes, heavy plates and hot-rolled flat steel are sold into Europe at unfairly low prices. The EU already has nine ongoing investigations and nearly 40 trade defence measures in place on steel imports.
It also announced provisional anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled flat steel from China and Russia. The duties range from 13.8% to 16% for the Chinese companies and from 19.8% to 26.2% for the Russian ones.
“We cannot allow unfair competition from artificially cheap imports to threaten our industry,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said in a statement. “I am determined to use all means possible to ensure that our trading partners play by the rules.”
The EU can impose duties on imports if it finds they are sold at below fair market prices and damage European producers.
EU steelmakers pin much of the blame on China, which produces half of the world’s 1.6 billion tonnes of steel, for the bankruptcies and capacity closures that have gathered pace.
European steel association Eurofer said the new duties on cold-rolled flat steel reflect the full dumping margin for Russia, but those for China could be too low to the imports.
“The EU must therefore urgently remove the lesser-duty rule to effectively address the Chinese steel trade distortion as the root cause of the EU steel crises,” Eurofer Director General Axel Eggert said.
Europe has lost 85,000 steel jobs since 2008, more than 20% of the workforce, Eurofer says.
Britain’s largest steelmaker Tata Steel said last month it would cut 1,050 British jobs, adding to 4,000 job losses in the British steel industry last October.
Steel workers are expected to march through Brussels on Monday, calling for protection from China, as Commissioners, EU ministers and representatives of industry attend a day of talks on trade and competitiveness.
China’s ministry of commerce has said any dumping claims should be put to the World Trade Organization.
In addition, the Commission on Friday announced the extension of duties to prevent imports of dumped and subsidised Chinese solar panel components via Taiwan and Malaysia.
An investigation concluded Chinese-made solar modules and cells were trans-shipped via Taiwan and Malaysia and to prevent the practice continuing, existing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties were being extended to those two countries, just for Chinese solar products.
Industry body Solar PowerEurope said it supported moves to stop companies breaking the law through trans-shipment, but called for duties to be lifted as the rate of solar installations in Europe has slowed.
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#China's Ministry of Commerce said that claims it was #dumping #steel in Europe should be put to the World Trade Organization (WTO), responding to reports that the European Commission (EC) was preparing to impose duties on imported Chinese steel.
#WTO members should fulfill their treaty obligations and stop using "surrogate countries" to pursue anti-dumping claims, a Ministry of Commerce spokesman said, according to a statement released on the ministry's website on Saturday.
The EC is set to impose provisional duties later this month of up to 16 percent on China, and of up to 26 percent on Russia, following its investigation into alleged dumping by the two countries.
Reuters reported that provisional measures are due to be announced by Feb. 14 and definitive duties, if imposed at the conclusion of the investigation, by Aug. 12. Such duties would typically apply for five years.
The Commission's investigation follows a complaint from Eurofer, the European steel association, which said Russia and China were dumping the steel - selling it below market prices at home or below the cost of production - on the EU market and thereby damaging the local industry.
The global steel industry is facing over-capacity, and the Chinese government is willing to discuss "in good faith" with WTO members "to create a fair, just and predictable international market environment," the statement said.
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