Author: wpengine

The United Steelworkers abandoned its push for a moratorium on aluminum imports after the nation’s biggest trading partner pushed back and the industry declined to support the union’s bid to protect American smelter jobs.

USW International President Leo Gerard said Friday that a lack of backing from aluminum companies for the union’s petition, filed Monday with the International Trade Commission, would make it difficult to convince trade officials that the industry is being critically harmed by cheap imports…

BEIJING — Regulators told Chinese banks Thursday to finance steel exports to help reduce a supply glut in a move that could worsen trade tensions with Europe and the United States.

Beijing is under pressure from the United States and Europe to stop what they say is a strategy of trying to clear away a backlog of steel by exporting it at unfairly low prices…

CANADA URGES STEELWORKERS DROP ALUMINUM CASE: The United Steelworkers union focused their anger and attention on China when they rolled out a petition Monday asking for a 50 percent emergency duty on imports of primary aluminum to save American jobs. But a closer look at the union’s filing reveals that about 66 percent of the imports come from Canada, causing major concern up north.

“Canada is deeply troubled by the action initiated by the US steelworkers union to curb the imports of aluminum from Canada,” Alex Lawrence, a spokesman for Canadian Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, said in an email to POLITICO. “Restrictions on Canadian exports will do nothing to deal with global overcapacity. Canada and the United States must address this issue of overcapacity in a strategic manner, together, and in the interests of all our workers.”…

Big news for companies buying aluminum product or semi-finished goods from China and for aluminum product producers who have been facing tough competition from Chinese exporters.

MetalBulletin reports China has agreed to end export subsidies it provided to industries including aluminum products, titanium and specialty steel after the U.S. complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in February 2015. Except, according to Andy Home of Reuters, it’s not big news…

MONTREAL – The federal government and members of Canada’s aluminum industry are expressing frustration over an effort to impose a 50 per cent tariff on aluminum imported into the U.S., most of which comes from north of the border.

The United Steelworkers union filed a petition Monday with the U.S. International Trade Commission that aims to stem the flow of imported primary unwrought aluminum it claims has decimated the American industry and jobs. About 6,500 workers in the U.S. aluminum sector have been laid off since 2011, when production was four times the volume it is today…

Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3) is leading a bipartisan group of more than 50 members of Congress in urging the Obama Administration to stop China from being granted market economy status (MES), which would be a disaster for American workers. When China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, a provision was put in place labeling China as a non-market economy, which allows the United States to implement significant anti-dumping duties to protect American companies from unfair Chinese trading practices. China has stated that it believes this provision expires at the end of this year.

“We understand that some argue that [Article 15 of China’s Protocol of Accession to the WTO] obligates granting China market economy status for the purposes of calculating anti-dumping duties. However, there are strong arguments that this provision creates no such obligation,” stated Rep. Lipinski and his colleagues in a letter to United States Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. “The anti-dumping law is a vital tool to ensure that unfairly priced Chinese imports do not injure U.S. companies and workers. This unfair trade is often due to Chinese production overcapacity, particularly in the steel and aluminum industries, and has had harmful effects on U.S. producers. Any consideration of the implications of the December 11, 2016, deadline must be consistent with U.S. law and should reflect the importance of effectively addressing unfairly priced Chinese imports.”…

I went to Washington, D.C., last week to ask trade experts and lawmakers to stop the relentless, lawless, callous dumping of Chinese steel, aluminum, paper, rubber, glass, chemicals and other products, which has closed mills, killed jobs, destroyed lives, devastated American communities and imperiled national security.

American steel is made in the most efficient, cost-effective mills in the world by the most skilled, productive workers anywhere. That’s a fact. It’s a fact that steel executives testified to last week in hearings conducted by members of Congress and trade law enforcers. We want the trade enforcers and Congress to stop the dumping and to force China to dramatically cut its steel production because China has kept none of its promises over the past seven years to voluntarily do so. In fact, it has continuously increased production…

“Today we have signed an agreement with China to eliminate export subsidies that the United States challenged because they are prohibited under WTO (World Trade Organization) rules.”

So said United States Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman in announcing last week’s deal with China to end what Froman described as a “massive and complex export subsidy program”…

HONG KONG — An American labor union is pushing the United States to impose broad, steep tariffs on aluminum imports using a little-used but wide-ranging trade law that has riled the country’s trading partners in the past.

The effort by the United Steelworkers union comes with trade increasingly an election-year issue in the United States and elsewhere. More than three-quarters of the United States aluminum smelting industry that existed five years ago will have been idled or shut down by this summer as imports have surged, according to the union’s legal petition…

Trade has become a target this presidential campaign season. Both Democrats and Republicans have been attacking trade agreements as “unfair” to American workers.That resonates in places like Massena, N.Y., where voters cast primary ballots this week.

For more than a century, the Alcoa company has been making aluminum in Massena, a small city on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Workers at Alcoa plants there made good wages — $20 to $30 an hour. But two years ago, faced with falling prices, the company decided to shutter one of its plants, eliminating more than 300 jobs.

“This influx of metal into the market from China and other countries, it’s flooded the market and drove the price down,” said Bob Smith, president of the local steelworkers union. “It’s hard to compete against that. That’s why we feel it’s unfair.”…