Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 26, 2015
Take the time to read the article in tonight’s issue about what the new trade legislation will mean to how injury or material injury is determined. I spoke with one of my sources last week who told me that this legislation will be a “game changer” for those who import foreign steel. No longer will the domestic mills have to show financial losses in order to prove their businesses are being damaged by foreign steel imports. They also will be able to file suits quicker by saying that the rise in imports will materially injure them in the future.
Here is how this foreign based mill source put it to us late last week, “I have been leading the trade legislstion project (watching it) for [mill name removed] for a few months. Personally I have been calling it a game changer in internal communications for awhile. I may be more impressed by it than others – most people simply ignore it because to them it seems like just another “Washington thing.” It could change behavior by the importer of record depending on what final version gets reconciled and signed into law. The Senate version is the more interesting one in my opinion!”
The lack of discussion about the changes which are about to occur has some quite concerned, including members of the financial community who cannot understand why manufacturing companies and service centers are not reacting at all. Here is an example of what I have been hearing from the financial community, “Hey John, we’re about a week or two away from the steel industry getting exactly what it wanted (across all trade packages on the table) and buyers are still sitting on their hands trying to figure out what this means!? I don’t get it…why isn’t there a bigger sense of urgency/excitement?”
I started working on this project late last week and will continue to do so through the early portion of this week. If you would like to voice your opinion as to what you think of the new trade legislation, especially as it pertains to the steel industry, please send me an email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or give me a call, I will be in the office until Wednesday of this week: 800-432-3475.
For those of you who are Twitter fans, you can follow Steel Market Update and our tweets at #SMUsteel. Please feel free to re-tweet our posts. If you just want to see tweets about our Steel Summit Conference we have started to group them with the hashtag #SteelSummitConference and you are welcome/encouraged to re-tweet them to others within the steel industry.
Many of you are well aware that Steel Market Update is not a large organization and we don’t have the funds to hire a sales staff to call past attendees and others in the industry as we attempt to get the word out that we have a quality conference dedicated to those who are actively working within the steel industry. The same situation exists when it comes to our newsletter, word of mouth is the most common way people within the industry hear of us and then travel to our website to see what we have to offer. I truly appreciate all of our readers/members who pass the word on that our products are one’s best read or attended. Thank you for your efforts and please keep up the good work!
I hope to see you in Atlanta in September as we conduct our 5th Steel Summit Conference. On Monday we anticipate closing our program as we will have added the last few speakers filling the holes intentionally left in the program. We should have the website updated by no later than Wednesday of this week. We have close to 100 companies already registered to attend this conference and the “buzz” I have heard on the street continues to lead me to believe this year’s conference will be the best attended as we continue to grow from year to year.
Our Early Bird Discount of $200 per person will be expiring soon and we encourage you to register yet this week.
Thank you to our corporate sponsors which include: Steel Dynamics, Cargill, Magic Coil Products, Alliance Steel. We have room for a few more sponsors, information is available on the Steel Summit page on our website or by clicking here to download a brochure.
We also have limited exhibition space for those who work directly with manufacturing companies, service centers, toll processors, trading companies and steel mills. Many people attend our conference that do not attend other industry events… Call me for details: 800-432-3475 or send me an email with any questions you might have: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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