Steel industry, labor urge Biden to retain steel tariffs

Four domestic steel industry associations and the United Steelworkers union have urged President-elect Joe Biden to ensure steel tariffs and quotas are kept in place.

The tariffs and quotas were enacted in 2018 by the Trump Administration. A letter to Biden from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA), the United Steelworkers union (USW), The Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports (CPTI), and American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) says: “Continuation of the [steel] tariffs and quotas is essential to ensuring the viability of the domestic steel industry in the face of massive and growing excess steel capacity.

“Removing or weakening of these measures before major steel producing countries eliminate their overcapacity—and the subsidies and other trade-distorting policies that have fueled the steel crisis—will only invite a new surge in imports with devastating effects to domestic steel producers and their workers.”

China, Vietnam, and Turkey, among others, continue to increase their steel production even as the pandemic has caused demand for steel to drop around the world, according to a news release from the steel coalition. Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia and others continue to export large shares of their steel production to other markets, the release says.