The American Wire Producers Association (AWPA) announced a grassroots action strategy to respond to potential steel tariffs or quotas from the Section 232 investigation. The Trump administration has until April 11 to make a final decision on the remedy options publicly released by the US Department of Commerce last week, but the AWPA notes that members of Congress might be able to influence Trump’s decision by discussing with him the likely damage tariffs would inflict on the downstream steel wire industry.
In an association-wide memorandum released Wednesday, the AWPA urges members to contact Congressional Representatives and Senators and ask them to oppose tariffs or quotas on steel imports, which the AWPA says are unnecessary. According to data included in the memo, the US steel industry has already used US trade laws to prevent unfair trade, with over 160 antidumping and countervailing duty orders and investigations of 25 categories of steel products from 37 countries.
Further, the AWPA states that the US steel wire and wire products industry includes over 1 million jobs at more than 30,000 facilities, “which are at risk if raw materials are not available globally.” In comparison, the US basic steel industry includes close to 82,000 jobs at 880 facilities, and US steel mills do not produce many types of steel products that downstream wire companies require for their manufacturing processes.
The last time the US used global tariffs to help the US steel industry—the Section 201 investigation in 2002—the US lost 200,000 jobs, the memo points out.
Other risks discussed in the memo include an adverse impact on national security, as tariffs will undermine US competitiveness and limit the domestic steel industry’s ability to make value-added products, many of which are used by the US military. Additionally, steel tariffs are likely to trigger retaliation against unrelated US exports, such as agricultural products, causing further disruption to the US economy overall.
In the memo, the AWPA says the US steel industry is set to benefit from tax reform, regulatory reform, and a new infrastructure bill, and it “does not need assistance at the expense of other steel jobs.”
Last week, in a letter to the president on behalf of 15 fellow associations that would be affected by Section 232 tariffs, the AWPA said US steel producers are not as negatively affected by imports as they claim, noting Nucor’s record net earnings in 2017, Steel Dynamics’ record steel shipments during the same year, and similar results from other mills. With profits set to soar after recent tax reform, “This is not an industry that warrants extraordinary and unprecedented relief from imports,” the letter said.
“Everyone in the US steel supply chain will be damaged by restrictions on steel imports,” the AWPA said in conclusion.