Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
May 30, 2018
It has been an incredibly busy day. The Trump administration was busy taking care of our “friends…” Canada, Mexico and the European Union are no longer excluded from the 232 tariffs. I got a note from a mill friend of mine who laid out the scenario as he saw it:
“The irony of this whole thing is that Trump has now given an advantage to the countries that are traditional dumpers, like Russia, and a disadvantage to good trading partners like Canada by putting the same penalties on them. If you compare coated, Russia has a low cost of production and certainly would have lost a trade case because they often resort to very aggressive prices when selling. Now they can sell unlimited volume with a 25 percent duty on a low cost. Brazil has lost all trade cases in flat, and surely would have lost a coated case, too. But they can sell duty free under a quota. Canada never sold cheap steel, has an integrated supply chain within NAFTA, would not have had a dumping case, yet it is at a huge disadvantage over those other two!”
This afternoon, Steel Market Update revised our SMU Price Momentum Indicator to “Higher” from Neutral. The reason being the Trump administration manipulation of the steel supply. I will have more on this in Sunday evening’s issue of SMU.
Tomorrow will be a busy day for Steel Market Update. Your feedback on what is happening in the market is much appreciated.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
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.
Final Thoughts
What’s been the impact of tariff threats on prices and demand? In short, not much – or at least that was the case when I was writing this column on Sunday afternoon. Spot activity for Canadian material, for example, has been put on hold over the last few weeks while the market waits to see what the new tariff landscape might look like.
Final Thoughts
Next Monday marks the start of the second Trump administration. The limbo we’ve been living in since Election Day in early November will finally come to an end. What better way to take a look at what’s coming up in Washington, D.C., than a conversation with Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) President Philip K. Bell. He […]
Final Thoughts
It’s another week of big headlines and ho-hum pricing moves – which is to say the start of 2025 is looking a lot like the end of 2024. Scrap has settled up $20 per gross ton (gt). Steel prices, however, were a soft sideways this week. Chalk it up to uneven demand and abundant supply. And while we’re not aware of any major outages, some of you tell us that you’ve lost some shipping days here and there because of the recent cold snap.
Final Thoughts
I wrote in a Final Thoughts a few years ago that it seemed all the swans were black. More recently, I’ve been asked by some of you what the wildcards are for 2025. You could probably make the case that all the cards are wild now.