China steel import to US insignificant - Mr Russell
Mr Clyde Russell wrote in Reuters that anybody looking at the United States' import data would wonder why the Trump administration is bothering making a big deal out of its steel trade with China. US Commerce Department statistics show that China supplied 73,594 tonnes of steel in May, a tiny 2.4% of the 3.12 million tonnes imported by the United States that month. In the first four months of 2017, US imports of Chinese steel products were 236,690 tonnes, representing 2.1% of total imports and down from 283,676 tonnes for the same period last year.
What the US import data reveals is that if there is a problem with too much imported steel, China is definitely not the source of that problem.
If Trump wants to boost the US steel industry by cracking down on imports, he should focus much closer to home, with Canada supplying 514,488 tonnes in May and Mexico 266,544.
China isn't even the biggest supplier of steel from Asia, being behind Japan, South Korea and India in May and only just ahead of Taiwan.
US President Donald Trump said last week that he is considering imposing tariffs on steel imports, while talks between the commerce secretaries of the United States and China ended without any concrete measures. The threat of US import taxes on Chinese steel have helped boost the share prices of US steelmakers, but this is likely more of a sentiment driven improvement rather than any expectation that imposing tariffs will be anything more than largely symbolic.
Source : Reuters