Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 27, 2015
I knew the cold rolled trade suits were coming this week. It had been rumored for a couple of months just as the hot rolled trade suits are being discussed for August. It doesn’t make the day of the filing (or night and day if you received one of the USS emails last night) go by any easier. It has been one hectic day.
We have a number of articles in tonight’s newsletter dedicated to the trade suits, an analysis of cold rolled imports from the eight countries hit by the antidumping petition filed by the domestic mills as well as comments from AK Steel which released their earnings this morning.
We have also been working on a number of other articles that I did not want to get lost in tonight’s issue. Some of you may have read the AMM coverage of the CORE (when you see CORE it is about the corrosion resistant trade suit) and the filing of Critical Circumstances against the 5 countries hit by that antidumping and countervailing duty petition. This is a major issue that could have a huge impact on trading companies who traded in goods from China, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Italy.
I traded emails over the day today with attorney Lewis E. Leibowitz (who will be one of our speakers at our 5th Steel Summit Conference) about critical circumstances and some of the unusual timing of this particular filing.
I have a copy of the filing (63 pages long) and I want to review it so we can write a more detailed article on the subject. We will do that for Thursday evening’s newsletter. Those of you buying coated products (specifically galvanized and Galvalume) and having exposure to foreign steel may want to mark your calendars.
The other thing I have been working on is getting a different viewpoint than what the domestic mills have been laying out there. I have comments from both service centers and end users who are not happy about the move against foreign steel because it could potentially create a non-competitive price environment here in the United States and force manufacturing back overseas, just when there was some light shining on the concept of re-shoring manufacturing.
I will be curious to see how Steel Summit keynote speaker, Dan DiMicco tackles the subject of making things in America and being world competitive with our manufactured products. I just gave everyone a couple of great reasons to attend our conference… Registration details are on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com and we have put the companies that are already registered in alphabetical order on the website to make it easier to find your company name (or imagine where it will be once you register)…
One more note: One of our attendees who is coming from Chicago showed us their receipt for airfare to Atlanta which they booked on Southwest Airlines today. The total fare was $88 (roundtrip)…
Hotel rooms are booking up. We have a limited room block that we expect will be depleted within the next week or so. Atlanta Marriott Gateway Hotel and the SMU rate (subject to the room block being available) is $139 per night. The normal rate is $239 per night. Click here for hotel reservations.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Pubilsher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
It’s once again A Tale of Two Cities in the steel market. Some are almost euphoric about Trump’s victory. Others, some rather bearish, are more focused on the day-to-day market between now and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Final Thoughts
One of the perhaps unintentional perks of being a trade journalist is the opportunity to travel and cover an array of industry conferences and events. Some I've attended have been at fun locations, like Palm Springs and Tampa, Fla. Others have been in more practical locations, like SMU’s Steel Summit in Atlanta and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) meetings in Washington, D.C.
Final Thoughts
t this point in the game I think what we can say about Nippon Steel’s proposed buy of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel is that it will go through, it won’t go through, or the outcome will be something new and completely unexpected. Then again, I’m probably still missing a few options.
Final Thoughts
President-elect Donald Trump continues to send shockwaves through the political establishment (again). And steel markets and ferrous scrap markets continue to be, well, anything but shocking. As the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." (I thought the quote might have been Yankees catcher Yogi Berra in 1949. Google taught me something new today.)
Final Thoughts
President-elect Donald Trump will officially retake the White House on Jan. 20. I’ve been getting questions about how his administration’s policies might reshape the steel industry and domestic manufacturing. I covered the tumult and norm busting of Trump's first term: Section 232, Section 301, USMCA - and that's just on the trade policy side of things. It's safe to say that we'll have no shortage of news in 2025 when it comes to trade and tariffs.