Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a “Buy American, Hire American” executive order that will tighten a temporary visa program and change government procurement policies that would boost purchases of American products in federal contracts, with one aim being to help US steelmakers.
Thomas J. Gibson, president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), today said that the “Buy American” portion of executive order is a positive step in ensuring full enforcement of existing Buy America laws and ensuring the steel industry remains competitive.
Gibson commented: “Strong Buy America domestic procurement preferences for federally funded infrastructure projects are vital to the health of the domestic steel industry, and have helped create manufacturing jobs and build American infrastructure. The foundation of a strong Buy America program is the longstanding requirement that all iron and steel-making processes occur in the US for a product to be Buy America compliant – from the actual steel production to the finishing processes.”
The “melted and poured” standard has been in effect since 1983.
The United Steelworkers union also commented on the executive order: “Taxpayers want their tax dollars used to promote domestic employment and production. Unfortunately, contractors often try to avoid the law through loopholes to buy cheap and often substandard foreign products like many from China. The result has been fewer jobs and less production here in the United States.”
The USW noted that loopholes have allowed contractors to circumvent the law by segmenting projects. Another area of concern to the domestic steel sector involves “foreign-owned companies whose business model is to engage in limited US finishing of imported foreign steel slabs.”
While claiming the final product is “US made,” the USW said that in many of these instances, “90 percent of the content has been manufactured overseas, thereby severely limiting US job creation and retention opportunities.”
The executive order also directs the US Department of Commerce and the US Trade Representative to assess existing trade agreements to make sure that they are fair and reciprocal.
“China has aggressively sought to supply increasing amounts of materials for American infrastructure projects,” the USW said. “With an annual procurement market of over $1.5 trillion, the US market cannot be open ground for dumped and subsidized products as countries like China seek to dominate global manufacturing.”
The USW said the provisions in the executive order, if effectively implemented, will help to ensure that dumped and subsidized products will not “steal the production from our companies and the jobs from our members.”