US firms insist to include exempted countries into S201
US steel companies continue to ask for the inclusion of
Mexico and other 30 developing countries into the safeguard measures originally implemented in March 2002 by the Bush administration.
The S201 safeguard measures were implemented at that date, with the purpose of protecting the
US steel industry from the import surge of steel, resulting in many
US steel companies going bankrupt, since 1994.
The steel safeguard tariff program is designed to apply for three years, the firs year's duties ranging from 8% to 30%, but gradually decreasing in the second and third years.
Mexico was excluded from the steel tariffs due to its NAFTA agreement with the US and
Canada and the other 30 countries due to their developing country status. Today, the
US steel companies claim that
flats imports from
Mexico have been 12% up since the implementation of the Bush administration tariffs in March. Furthermore the developing countries' imports reached to 1.6 million tons in the first 10 months of year 2002, compared to the 1.2 million tons figure for the same period of year 2001.
The 30 developing countries concerned are;
India,
Turkey,
Egypt, South
Africa,
Venezuela,
Romania,
Thailand,
Bulgaria,
Indonesia,
Poland,
Argentina,
Chile,
Hungary,
El Salvador,
Morocco,
Costa Rica,
Colombia,
Guatemala, Dominican Republic,
Kenya,
Honduras,
Dominica, Antigua,
Tunisia,
Haiti,
Philippines,
Peru,
Panama,
Lithuania and
Latvia.
The timing of this request by the
US steel companies might be contradictory as the Bush Administration lately invited new exemption requests to be evaluated. These new exclusions to be determined from around 600 requests received will be considered in addition to the excluded 727 foreign products accounting for approximately 3.2 million tons, i.e. 25% of the total 13 million tons of imports affected by the measures last year.
The aim to grant exemptions is described as endeavours to protect the domestic mills from supply shortages for their
production. Exemptions were originally intended to be granted mainly for products that are not produced in the US.
Nevertheless, the expectancy of the
US steel companies, among which are
Nucor, Gallatin Steel, IPSCO, Steel Dynamics, Weirton Steel and Rouge Steel, is that not many of the new exemption requests will be accepted as they believe that most are for only the repetition of the initially requested but refused products.
The decisions in this respect are expected to come out in March 2003.
According to US authorities, the withdrawal of the safeguard measures might be in close relation to the progress of the international negotiations targeting to ban government subsidies, on the other hand industry experts expect that US would keep the three-year safeguard program in force unless WTO rules that same violates trade rules.
If that will be the case, an initial decision is expected no sooner than spring, and to any decision to come out, it is commonly believed that an appeal will take place.