Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 25, 2016
SMU still has a number of open spots available for our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop. The workshop will be held just outside of Toledo, Ohio as part of our program will be a tour of one of the most successful flat rolled mini-mills in the United States, the North Star Bluescope mill. Our highly experienced instructors, who come from steel mills (long and flat rolled), service center and manufacturing, are looking forward to working with another exceptional group of attendees. If you would like to learn more about our Steel 101 workshop please go to our website or feel free to contact me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at: 800-432-3475 with any questions you might have.
I want to welcome our newest member companies (subscribers) to Steel Market Update. I encourage you to spend time going through our website as well as reading our newsletters. If you need help navigating the site or have questions please contact: Brett@SteelMarketUpdate.com and he should be able to assist you. If you have questions, comments or suggestions we are all ears. You can send them to me personally (my email is in the paragraph above) or to our general inbox: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. Thank you for putting your faith in us and we will do our best to provide the best informed market intelligence possible.
I will be in Naples, Florida on Thursday through Saturday of this week attending the Association of Steel Distributors (ASD) annual meeting.
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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Final Thoughts
From one group of folks, I’ve heard that Trump might not wait until Feb. 1 – the date he threatened on to place tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico. They say he could act as soon as Friday. And then there are those who don’t think anything will happen before April 1. That’s the deadline for Commerce, Treasury, and USTR to submit key reports on “America First Trade Policy” to President Trump.
Final Thoughts
Trump made a clarification in a speech on Monday. Previously, he had declared the word “tariff” the most beautiful word in the dictionary. No longer.
Final Thoughts
President Donald Trump on Sunday hammered Colombia with 25% tariffs and threatened to increase them to 50%. Trump in a post on Truth Social said he took the action not because of a trade dispute but because the South American nation had refused to accept planes carrying deported immigrants. The president also cited "national security" concerns, just as he did to justify 25% Section 232 tariffs on steel in his first term. Even the 50% threat echoes his first term. Turkish steel, like that of most nations, was assessed a 25% tariff in March 2018. Trump doubled Turkey's tariff to 50% via a tweet in August of that year over a matter unrelated to steel.
Final Thoughts
We surveyed many of you this week and asked what you wanted to see from the new Trump administration. Responses were varied but fell largely into three groups: tariffs and trade policy, the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal, and those who are concerned about too much government sway in steel. Some also expressed hope that President Trump would continue the infrastructure spending that began under former President Biden.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes new presidential administrations hit the ground running. No time for change like the present. And sometimes new administrations blast off on a SpaceX rocket bound for Mars. There’s a big universe, and we’ve got a lot of flags to plant. Such seems to be the case with the new Trump administration.