By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz This is the last trade and tariff update for 2021, definitely an eventful year. We have gone from a riot at the Capitol, to a surge in COVID, widespread vaccinations (but still not enough for “herd immunity,” whatever that is), more foreign policy crises in Taiwan, China, Ukraine, Afghanistan, historic […]
On Friday, the Labor Department announced the inflation rate for November. At 0.8%, it was a tick lower than the October inflation rate of 0.9%. But most observers paid more attention to the annual rate of inflation. At 6.8% compared to prices one year ago, the inflation rate was the highest it’s been since 1982. […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The global situation is changing under our feet (and noses). There is much to unpack, but the trend is clearly disturbing. First, Russia has massed between 100,000 and 200,000 troops on its border with Ukraine. No one is talking publicly about why that is happening, but the obvious concern is […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The COP26 Glasgow conference on climate change just ended, yesterday, a day later than scheduled. The conference needed the extra day to hammer out a joint communiqué on what was agreed to and next steps. At the last moment, India threatened to torpedo the agreement because it contained strong language about phasing […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz Last Wednesday, it was my pleasure to join many readers on the latest Steel Market Update Community Chat. After a brief rundown of current issues affecting the steel sector and its customers, we had a lively round of questions, refereed by SMU Senior Editor Michael Cowden. We didn’t get to […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz I summarized the newly announced trade deals between the United States and the European Union last week. I use the plural because a lot of issues were addressed in the statements that followed. Today’s column evaluates a few of the trends that are visible from these statements – notably on […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz At the last minute, the U.S. and EU announced a deal to keep the tariff wars from getting worse. Yesterday, at the G20 meeting in Rome, the two sides announced an agreement that will prevent major retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to Europe from going into effect on Dec. 1. […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has been traveling. She has a lot on her plate. In an effort to attract allies to the United States’ plan to rein in China, the U.S. has floated a proposal, according to reports, to replace the 25% steel and 10% aluminum tariffs with a […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz I used to love a PBS show called Connections. The title is still around, and I recall an episode years ago that explored the Space Shuttle. Thousands of “connections” were necessary before the spacecraft became a reality: chemistries to make substances capable of withstanding re-entry temperatures, power systems for rockets, […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz A reader turned me on to a recent column by former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. I have known Ambassador Lighthizer for quite a few years now. He is smart and an able advocate. But that does not mean we see eye to eye. The column, which appeared in the […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz While Section 232 has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years, the antidumping and countervailing duty laws have been the mainstay of protecting domestic industries from steel to aluminum to solar panels to auto parts for many years. In the runup to the 2020 election, the Commerce […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The Section 232 tariffs are uppermost on people’s minds again, according to questions I’m getting from readers. My view is that the tariffs (and quotas and “monitoring”) have remained because of politics and the lack of ideas for reconciling the irreconcilable. We need a policy that protects domestic steel (and […]
By Trade Attorney Lewis Leibowitz The announcement last week that the U.S. would work to provide secret technology to Australia for that country to build and operate nuclear-powered submarines turned heads in the United States, but blew minds in France. The nuclear sub deal also terminated a $66 billion deal for France to supply diesel-powered […]
The end of summer marks a return to normal in Washington. Congress is back, and so are the president’s cabinet and advisors. This is the time of year for officials to float new ideas. In the international trade arena, American business groups grew increasingly impatient with the lack of ideas on resetting the economic relationship […]
I was pleased to see many of you this past week in Atlanta at the SMU Steel Summit. It is certainly one of the largest (and most significant) steel conferences in the United States. This year was a first – a hybrid conference, with about 800 in-person attendees and 300 virtual. I doubt it will […]
Over the last week or so, statistics have emerged about the surge in capacity utilization of the steel industry in the United States. Since Jan. 1, the American Iron and Steel Industry reports, domestic steelmakers have operated at a capacity utilization rate of 80.1%. In the most recent week reported, ending Aug. 7, capacity utilization was 84.8%, […]
We are seeing (again) the disruption that unexpected news can bring. Just when we thought we were out of the woods (no pun intended), we see a resurgence of hospitalizations from COVID, the fall of Afghanistan, perhaps the unluckiest country in the world, a major earthquake in Haiti, perhaps the second unluckiest, and a hurricane […]
Readers asked me to discuss Section 232 and its possible future. Steel and aluminum tariffs have been around since 2018, not to mention other investigations on components of electric transformers made with electrical steel, autos and auto parts, and vanadium. I think that, under applicable law, certain of these cases have been resolved. I explain here […]
Last Tuesday, the Court of International Trade issued a major opinion in the massive litigation over China tariffs. As I’ve written before, the imposition of tariffs on more than $200 billion of imports per year from China has prompted a slew of lawsuits (more than 3,600 so far, including 6,500 separate plaintiffs), which could find […]
The Biden administration took office not only in the midst of a pandemic, but a global rethink of economic opportunity and outcomes. It’s one reason that global institutions, such as the WTO and the International Monetary Fund, are suffering from a lack of respect and influence, not only among general populations but opinion leaders and […]
I’ve noticed an increased focus on international issues reflecting moral and political subjects as opposed to economic ones, although these have been with us for a long time. Economists call this “virtue signaling.” The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) published an article on the subject a few years ago, defining “virtue signaling” as “the […]
I’ve noticed an increased focus on international issues reflecting moral and political subjects as opposed to economic ones, although these have been with us for a long time. Economists call this “virtue signaling.” The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) published an article on the subject a few years ago, defining “virtue signaling” as “the […]
I asked a good friend of mine after he was appointed to as the deputy head of a cabinet department what a typical day was like for him. “It’s drinking water from a fire hose. Things come at you so fast you can’t get out of the way,” he said. As an observer and occasional […]
I asked a good friend of mine after he was appointed to as the deputy head of a cabinet department what a typical day was like for him. “It’s drinking water from a fire hose. Things come at you so fast you can’t get out of the way,” he said. As an observer and occasional […]
The government is exploring ways to resolve serious trade disputes with the EU. At the same time, it is attempting to preclude having to make refunds of potentially unlawful duties collected since 2018. As I mentioned in last week’s column, President Biden’s first foreign trip since he took office featured four summit meetings: the G7 […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: Happy New Year to all—and good riddance to 2020. Jan. 1, 2021, marks the beginning of a new era for the European Union and the United Kingdom. The divorce is final. On the eve of a “no deal” […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: Things happened last week that will affect politics (and business) for some time to come. The effects include a Democrat-controlled Senate, the loss of stature of several members of Congress (including a few Senators) and improved prospects for […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: As the nation (and the world) prepares for the inauguration of Joe Biden as the new president, many groups are releasing position papers telling the new administration what it should do about trade-related issues. They run the gamut from […]
I’m looking forward to next month’s Tampa Steel Conference, where we will discuss lots of steel-related policy issues. The conference provides an opportunity to weigh the importance of the steel industry in the American economy and the global economy. We cannot realistically discuss what to do about steel (or any industry) from either a government […]
Can we measure the relative importance of steel-producing versus steel-consuming industries? Last week, I looked at some ways to measure the steel industry’s importance to the economy and national defense today and in the past. Today, I explore another major point of comparison—the economic and strategic importance of steel production and steel-consuming industries economically and […]