Tackling the tracking of trade cases and what it says about the steel industry

When US steelmakers and other producers around the globe embarked on the long and tangled journey of unfair trade case litigation last year, we joked in this space that “You need a scorecard” to keep track of things. Now we have one.

Four Platts trade publications – Global Market Outlook, Steel Markets Daily, World Steel Review and the Steel Price Report – are now carrying a homegrown chart of recent steel trade case actions from around the world. The list of dumping and subsidy allegations is impressive, or depressive, depending on which side of the trade fence you sit on.

The chart lists 72 global trade case developments or determinations of recent vintage, including 20 complaints from North America, mainly the US. Asia is next with 19, followed by the EU (9), Australia (9), South America (8), Africa (3), Turkey (3) and the Middle East (1).

Not surprisingly, 40 of the recent cases are against China, which itself has just one steel import complaint in the works – a dumping case against grain-oriented electrical sheet from the EU, South Korea and Japan. Provisional antidumping duties of roughly 15-46% have been levied, the chart informs us, pending final determinations.

By product, the most global steel trade complaints – 25 out of 72 – are against flat-rolled steel imports, mostly sheet steel. Pipe & tube is next at 15, followed by basic construction steels rebar and wire rod at 14 combined.

This country and product breakdown provides a little insight into who is engaged in what unfair trade litigation these days. But the chart itself comes closer to telling the whole story. For example, some cases involve multiple products and multiple producers, and some are against one country and one product.

Furthermore, not all trade cases are the same. The bulk of the 72 listed by Platts are antidumping and countervailing duty cases, the latter as a remedy to offset government subsidies. But there are also safeguard actions and tariffs listed. These are intended to provide blanket coverage whereby all exporters to a particular country face the same levies or restrictions.

And true to the “scorecard” motif, many of the cases charted are in a state of flux. Listings include recent trade case petitions, the launching of government investigations, preliminary duty and injury determinations, duty extensions, redeterminations and, in one instance, case preparation.

The steely resolve of the complainants as they pursue duties thru the labyrinth of government unfair trade protocols is evident as well. It is perhaps matched by the irony of the multitude of outcomes and complications for what many consider to be a basic product.

Finally, it should be noted that in the global steel boxing match this list of  72 current unfair trade cases is a mere welterweight – the tip of the iceberg that is the weighty welter of past steel trade litigation outcomes, going back to the 1980s – many of which are still on the books.