US discussions to include Turkey & India in S201
According to the latest reports from the industry, the US trade officials are considering to include Turkey and India in the scope of the S201 safeguard measures and an investigation on the steel imports from these coutries is being initiated. Such investigation is decided upon the presentation of the US steel producers evidencing data that imports from these developing countries are exceeding the 3% of the related products' total imports into the US. According to the data published by AISI, a total tonnage of 1'805'000 finished steel products are imported into the US in August. 65'000 tons of this total is imported from Turkey and 28'000 tons from India. The 8-months total of imports is 14'686'000 tons, 682'000 tons of which is coming from Turkey and 294'000tons from India. According to these numbers, percentage of total Turkish imports is 3.6 for the month of August and 4.6 for the total 8 month overall. However, the exact situation and breakdown of percentages will be verified after completion of the investigation on product basis. Initially India and Turkey were excluded from the S201 safeguard measures due to their developing country status.