On Thursday night, Donald Trump announced that starting June 10, “the United States will impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods coming into our country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico stop. If Mexico still has not taken action to dramatically reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens crossing its territory into the United States, tariffs will be increased to 15 percent on August 1, 2019, to 20 percent on September 1, 2019, and to 25 percent on October 1, 2019.”
Consequentially, those selling US import API X-52 line pipe from Mexico now need to renegotiate contracts with their customers.
“After it was announced that the Section 232 tariffs were coming off, we had a lot of customers express interest in booking Mexican material for projects,” a source said. “But all of this is impossible to plan. Now we need to go back to our customers to say oh, hey, by the way, this could cost you 5 percent more, 10 percent more, it’s crazy.”
Domestically, prices are still soft, with the average spot market price transaction range for API X-52 holding at $60-$62 cwt. ($1,323-$1,366/mt or $1,200-$1,240/nt), ex-mill, although as with last week, deals below that range are available to volume buyers.