The industries that move the nations’ freight are scrambling to find ways to mitigate risks from U.S.-imposed tariffs and foreign-imposed retaliatory tariffs that will impact supply lines and trade flow. Volatility seems to be the new normal as industries face uncertainty over international trade conflicts. Ports Prepare for Tariff Disruptions The Trump administration’s addition of […]
Sales by NLMK’s U.S. mills grew 15 percent to 638,000 metric tons in the second quarter of 2018 compared to the first, triggered by trade restrictions, said the company in a trade update on Friday. NLMK USA sales included 369,000 metric tons of hot-rolled steel, 129,000 tons of cold-rolled, and 139,000 ton of galvanized steel. […]
Last night for me in Maine. It’s been a wonderful long weekend to escape some of the heat of Florida for a few days. I will be traveling most of the day tomorrow and I will be back in my office on Tuesday for the balance of the week before leaving for Minnesota. We will […]
Are imports of motor vehicles and auto parts a threat to the security of the United States? More than three out of four respondents to last week’s Steel Market Update market trends questionnaire say no. Citing the same argument that it used to justify the tariffs on steel and aluminum under Section 232 of the […]
Detroit automakers reported higher sales in June as buyer enthusiasm for SUVs and pickup trucks continued. Ford sales for the month increased 1.2 percent year-over-year to 230,635 vehicles on purchases of SUVs and F-series trucks. Fiat Chrysler sales jumped 8 percent to 202,264 vehicles in June and General Motors, no longer reporting monthly sales, said […]
Tariffs on cars and trucks made in Canada and exported to the United States could have a significant effect on ferrous scrap prices, says scrap consultant John Harris of Aaristic Services, Inc. Speaking at a recent meeting of the Canadian Association of Recycling Industries, Harris said if the proposed 20 percent or 25 percent tariff […]
Big River Steel had made no secret it was considering further expansion less than two years after opening the high-tech Flex Mill on the Mississippi River in Osceola, Ark, and today announced it will proceed with a $1.2 billion investment that will double the mill’s annual capacity to 3.3 million tons. Some of that tonnage […]
On Monday and part of Tuesday of this week, SMU President & CEO John Packard attended a number of meetings in New York City. The first meeting was the CRU Steel Briefing where the CRU Group provided insights and forecasts regarding steel, scrap, Section 232 and other topics of interest. SMU hosted the Bank of […]
ArcelorMittal Dofasco CEO Sean Donnelly told Ottawa lawmakers that U.S. tariffs may force the company to lay off 1,000 workers and reconsider investments totaling $564 million. During testimony at a special meeting of the House International Trade Committee, Donnelly and other steel manufacturers asked the government to hold firm on retaliatory tariffs against the United […]
(Updated 6/27/2018) Steel Dynamics, Inc. has announced plans to expand its offering of value-added flat roll steel products through the addition of a new galvanizing line in Columbus, Miss. The company plans to invest $140 million, adding a third galvanizing line at its Columbus Flat Roll Division. The new galvanizing line will have an annual coating capability of […]
U.S. Steel has promoted Daniel M. Killeen to the position of General Manager Gary Works effective immediately. Killeen will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of U.S. Steel’s largest integrated steelmaking facility. Killeen joined U.S. Steel in 1996 as a Management Associate at Gary Works. He went on to work in a series of increasingly […]
Steel Market Update is working with AK Steel as we present our first Steel 201: Introduction to Advanced High Strength & Other New Steels workshop. This workshop is meant to be a continuing education course focused on how steel is made with a special focus on advanced high-strength steels for automotive and other “lightweighting” applications. […]
In testimony before a skeptical and sometimes combative group of senators Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did his best to defend the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum and the controversial trade policies of the Trump administration. Despite his assurances that the process of reviewing product exclusion requests is on track, members of the […]
Lewis Leibowitz, trade attorney and contributor to Steel Market Update, offers the following commentary on the latest trade developments in Washington: • The Section 232 investigation into automobiles and auto parts is in the comment phase. The deadline for written comments is June 22. The hearing in the investigation is on July 19 and 20. If […]
Foreign-made automobiles and parts may soon be facing tariffs if the administration is successful in its investigation to determine whether imports of automobiles and auto parts threaten to impair national security. On May 23, the Commerce Department initiated a Section 232 investigation on imported automobiles and parts, noting that during the past 20 years imports […]
I am excited for you, our customers. I have been working closely with the CRU Group, and our members will begin to see some subtle changes to the articles we write. One will be the use of CRU data on such items as our Foreign vs. Domestic Price Spread articles, which we will publish in […]
Steel Market Update canvassed industry executives this week to gauge their expectations for steel prices and to see if they have felt any effects yet from the Trump administration’s tariffs on steel from Canada and Mexico. Most anticipate fallout from the tariffs in the coming weeks and months, including upward pressure on prices. Following are […]
Is Canada really guilty of the trade inequity that President Trump charges? We looked at two product targets of the administration—dairy and automobiles—to find out. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative estimates trade with Canada in 2017 totaled $673.9 billion–$341.2 billion in exports and $332.8 billion in imports, for a goods and services trade […]
I am finally home long enough to gather my thoughts and hopefully get back to providing some insights into the flat rolled, plate and scrap markets from my perspective. There is obviously a lot of uncertainty connected to the Section 232 tariffs in both steel and aluminum. The Trump administration appears to have an intense […]
NLMK USA has requested tariff exclusion on the import of slabs under Section 232, but has received blowback from several U.S. steel mills. Nucor, U.S. Steel and AK Steel have filed objections to the request, arguing that there is sufficient slab supply in the United States to supply NLMK yet the company continues to buy […]
I have just returned from three days in Memphis where we conducted our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop. We had a packed house of motivated steel people from a wide variety of companies. Nucor Hickman and Nucor-Yamato did a great job of hosting our group as we toured both steel […]
Canada’s Samuel, Son & Co., a leading metals distributor and industrial products manufacturer, has invested $18 million in its Brantford, Ontario, automotive metals processing center. It expects to complete the expansion by the fourth quarter, ramping to full production in early 2019. Samuel’s Brantford facility is currently a 141,000-square-foot metals processing operation equipped with blanking […]
Rising fuel prices don’t seem to be impacting automotive sales; U.S. consumers are still hungry for SUVs and light trucks. WardsAuto reported that U.S. automakers delivered 1.58 million light vehicles in May for a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 16.8 million units. Sales of Ford’s F-Series pickups jumped 11.3 percent to 84,639 trucks despite a […]
Steel Market Update will be conducting our early June flat rolled and plate steel market analysis beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday. If you receive an invitation to participate, please take a few moments to open the email and answer the first question at the bottom of the message. That will take you to […]
Lewis Leibowitz, trade attorney and contributor to Steel Market Update, offers the following update on trade events in Washington: As briefly stated by the Trade Commissioner of the European Union, Cecilia Malmstrom, “Today is a bad day for world trade.” Malmstrom was referring to the announcement by President Trump that the 25 percent tariffs on steel […]
The Trump administration’s announcement today that it would not spare its closest trading partners from the 25 percent tariff on steel imports surprised many in the market. Effective at midnight, steel from Canada, Mexico and the EU countries will be subject to the same penalty as exports from China and other so-called “bad actors.” Steel […]
ArcelorMittal announced the retirement of Robrecht Himpe, executive officer and executive vice president. A 37-year veteran of ArcelorMittal, Himpe will retire from his duties as a member of ArcelorMittal’s executive management committee and as CEO, ArcelorMittal North America and CEO, AM/NS Calvert on July 1, 2018. Himpe joined the group’s Gent operations in 1981. After […]
Lewis Leibowitz, trade attorney and contributor to Steel Market Update, offers the following update on trade issues in Washington, including China, NAFTA, and a new Section 232 investigation on automotive imports: • The White House reported that 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of imports from China will be announced by June 15, and […]
The Trump administration’s announced Section 232 investigation into imports of automobiles and auto parts is not sitting well with lawmakers or automotive industry analysts. Some lawmakers are calling the suggestion that automotive imports are a threat to national security an abuse of executive branch authority. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called the investigation […]
President Trump has ordered a Section 232 investigation to determine whether imports of automobiles threaten national security interests. The investigation comes on the heels of China’s announcement that it will drop tariffs on imported vehicles from 25 percent to 15 percent and tariffs on autoparts to 6 percent. The reductions are presumably positive for the […]