AIIS warns Trump about recommended steel remedies

American Institute for International Steel Board Chairman John Foster said problems in the U.S. steel industry have not been caused by steel produced elsewhere.    American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) Board Chairman John Foster on Monday criticized the Commerce Department’s Section 232 recommendations for steel and aluminum imports released Feb. 16 as “excessive and unnecessary,” adding they would “have a significant negative impact” on U.S. economic growth.
   “Whatever problems [the U.S. steel industry] has have not been caused by steel produced elsewhere,” Foster said. “While the report cites several mill shutdowns, those facilities were closed not because of imports, but because they were antiquated and inefficient.”
   Yet Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross noted during a Feb. 16 call with reporters that global steelmaking capacity is currently 2.4 billion metric tons annually, up 127 percent since 2000, and added that his department’s recommendations for blanket tariffs or quotas, or a mix of the remedies, are geared toward increasing steel employment, which is rebounding from recent slumps.
   Foster pointed to Big River Steel, whose CEO has said automotive manufacturers are “beating a path to our door,” because “unlike those other manufacturers, it is not relying on decades-old technology,” Foster said.
   Foster complained that the 232 recommendations would “reward lack of innovation” and “benefit a few politically favored companies.”
   “We urge President Trump to protect the country from the damage that tariffs, quotas, and other restrictive measures would inflict, and reject them outright,” he said.
   Foster’s statement follows a Feb. 8 AIIS letter to Trump arguing that imported steel has a positive effect on U.S. national security, which was the basis for the 232 investigations.
   Further, a 2017 study by consulting firm Martin Associates stated that steel port activity supports 1.3 million jobs and $240 billion of economic activity, AIIS President Richard Chriss noted in the letter.
   “The global steel market means that defense and weapons systems, as well as national critical infrastructure, can be procured and built at more competitive prices, making it possible for the United States to provide its troops with more armored vehicles, guns and protective plates,” Chriss wrote. “And no international crisis would threaten the supply of steel to this sector.”