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China continues to produce more steel than the rest of the world, COMBINED

Chinese dumping is destroying our steel. It needs to be protected.
 
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The title is a little confusing. There has been negotiations between China and the EU for a while now on this.

For the particular "investigation" by the EU, it would be responded in kind, at least. China is very innovative in utilizing soft punishment.

For the excess capacity, China has been working on steel and coal for a while now.

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China progressing in steel overcapacity cut: MOC
Xinhua, February 7, 2016

China has taken concrete steps to reduce steel overcapacity, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Saturday, in response to encouragement from the European Union (EU).

After a string of measures to cut steel overcapacity, China has seen marked progress at considerable costs with the capacity growth having been curbed, the MOC said.

The State Council, China's cabinet, announced on Thursday the country will reduce its steel production capacity by 100 million tonnes to 150 million tonnes over the next five years, after a reduction of more than 90 million tonnes during 2011 to 2015.

"The moves and plan show China's resolution," the MOC said.

The EU has urged China to curb overcapacity as it worries steel imports from China may hurt its domestic interests. It announced it is considering new anti-dumping investigations this month, according to a Rueters report on Friday.

As steel overcapacity is a common problem worldwide and requires joint effort, China is willing to make contributions to the matter through sincere talks with members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the MOC said.

In addition, the MOC also said WTO members should stop using a "surrogate country system" on China's exports as the practice will lose its legal basis by the end of 2016, according to the agreement signed when China joined the WTO.

Under the "surrogate country system," importers use costs of production in a third country to calculate the normal value of exports from a non-market economy.

However, the system should no longer be adopted to trade with China which has successfully built a market economy after decades of reform and opening up.
 
EU hits China with new steel anti-dumping probes
Photo: Reuters
EU hits China with new steel anti-dumping probes, AsiaOne Asia News

Brussels - The EU launched new probes on Friday into imports of Chinese steel, warning it would not allow "unfair competition" to threaten Europe's industry already crumbling under a flood of cheap imports.



European steelmakers are reeling from a global glut and last week Luxembourg-based world leader ArcelorMittal blamed China for a colossal $8-billion loss in 2015 while thousands of jobs are being cut.

"We cannot allow unfair competition from artificially cheap imports to threaten our industry. I am determined to use all means possible to ensure that our trading partners play by the rules," EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said in a statement.



The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, had opened an investigation into imports of seamless pipes, heavy plates and hot-rolled flat steel from China, the statement said.

The Commission separately imposed anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled flat steel imports from China and Russia.

It recalled that it recently also imposed anti-dumping measures on Chinese steel bars used in the construction industry.

Malmstroem last month urged China to cut output for everyone's sake.

"In the wake of a worrying trend, I urge you to take all appropriate measures to curb the steel overcapacity and other causes aggravating the situation," Malmstroem wrote in a letter to Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng.

The letter also warned China that it faced new probes if nothing was done after its steel exports soared 50 per cent in 2015, destabilising the global market and the EU in particular.

China accounts for half of global steel production but internal demand has slowed sharply along with the economy, forcing it to look overseas.

Beijing has announced plans to cut production by as much as 150 million tonnes over the next five years but this is far short of the 340 million tonnes that experts say the country is overproducing every year.

The latest measure on steel comes amid a growing stand-off between the EU and China, which are major trading partners but which have also had many trade disputes in the past, most bitterly over solar panels which continues to rumble on.

In a separate statement Friday, the Commission said it was extending existing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures on imports of Chinese solar modules and cells via Taiwan and Malaysia.

It said an investigation showed that China was getting around duties by transhipping the goods via Taiwan and Malaysia.

Tensions with China have also grown as Beijing presses the EU to recognise it as a fully market based economy, not a communist, state controlled giant which now ranks second in the world only after the United States.

China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001 as a developing country, a status giving it 15 years to progressively remove government controls.

Beijing insists it has done just that and should now be recognised as a market economy but many in Brussels disagree.

They say the change in status could mean they will have fewer options to control trade with a China they believe is still dumping exports on the global markets.

Malmstroem's spokesman Daniel Rosario said the EU currently had 37 trade defence regimes in force against imported goods and 16 of these involved Chinese products.

Steel industry group Aegis Europe plans a march in Brussels Monday, expecting to draw several thousand people to a protest against China's market-economy ambitions.




ThyssenKrupp's (TYEKY) CEO Heinrich Hiesinger on Q1 2016 Results - Earnings Call Transcript | Seeking Alpha

most if not all countries have tarrifs and anti-dumping laws.

:disagree::disagree:

not sure why you are putting the west on a pedestal and then trying to knock it down
 
Chinese dumping is destroying our steel. It needs to be protected.
As a consumer, don't you like low price? If EU steel companies can't keep up, they should be out of business. I doubt we have intention to cut the price of steel to destroy EU steel companies. It is more likely overcapacity and we need to get rid of the steel. Nobody wants to sell their product low price without making a profit.
 
Trungquoc ladocho de
 
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Before the US imposed tariffs against certain imports of certain Chinese steels I stated that the reason we didn’t want to do this is because such trade restrictions make Americans poorer. The reason being that imports are the whole point of our having trade in the first place, they are what make us richer: so, why are we trying to make ourselves poorer by making the very things that we want more expensive? We now have the results of those tariffs being imposed: the results being that as predicted Americans are becoming poorer as a result of those China steel tariffs. This is a pretty good recommendation for economic forecasting and also and extremely good indication of how truly public policy about matters economic can be.
From the WSJ today:

New tariffs on imports are boosting steel prices in the U.S., offering a lifeline to beleaguered American steelmakers but raising costs for manufacturers of goods ranging from oil pipes to factory equipment to cars.

U.S. steel producers who lost billions of dollars last year amid a flood of cheap imports are looking to capitalize on tighter supplies and higher pricing. That is shifting the dynamics of a supply chain that had come to rely on inexpensive foreign steel.

Well, OK, if you set out to make steel more expensive then you can do that. You can make steel more expensive. But is that actually what you want to be doing, making an input more expensive?

Some manufacturers are pushing back. In a letter to the Department of Commercerequesting an exemption, Steelcase Inc. Chief Executive James Keane said a tariff on a special kind of Japanese steel could cost one of his subsidiaries $4 million to $5 million a year.

The subsidiary, Polyvision, makes whiteboards for schools at a plant in Oklahoma, where it employs about 50 people. “If nothing changes, we would have to close our Oklahoma plant,” he wrote. “Schools can’t afford to pay more for these whiteboards, so if we raise prices to our customers they will use lower quality substitutes that are likely not made in the U.S.”

Well, you know, maybe not?

And the reason why not is obvious too. What we want is to be able to consume as much as possible at the lowest cost possible. That’s the point and purpose of our having an economy at all. Thus we don’t want to raise the price of the things that people consume. This is true whether those things are made within our country or outside it. In fact, the cheaper those imports are the more they make us richer. So, sure, we can raise the price of steel. But we don’t want to because that is the thing which makes people poorer. They must pay more for something made with steel and thus have less to spend upon other things.

And it’s not as if we don’t know that. Back a while President Bush imposed tariffs on steel imports. And we know what the outcome of that was:

As a result of a Section 201 (“safeguard”) investigation brought at the
behest of the U.S. steel industry, President Bush in March 2002 imposed tariffs
on imports of certain steel products for three years and one day. The tariffs,
combined with other challenges present in the marketplace at the time and in the
months that followed, boosted steel costs to the detriment of American
companies that use steel to produce goods in the United States. The resulting
negative impact included job losses for thousands of American workers.
The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) Foundation
requested a formal examination of the impact of higher steel costs on American
steel-consuming industries,1 and in particular, a quantification of employment
losses at those companies. This study employed straight-forward and widelyaccepted
regression analysis using a variety of price and employment data to
maximize the reliability of the results.2 We found that:
• 200,000 Americans lost their jobs to higher steel prices during 2002.
These lost jobs represent approximately $4 billion in lost wages from
February to November 2002.3
• One out of four (50,000) of these job losses occurred in the metal
manufacturing, machinery and equipment and transportation equipment and
parts sectors.
• Job losses escalated steadily over 2002, peaking in November (at 202,000
jobs), and slightly declining to 197,000 jobs in December.4
• More American workers lost their jobs in 2002 to higher steel prices than
the total number employed by the U.S. steel industry itself (187,500
Americans were employed by U.S. steel producers in December 2002).
Note that last line. The estimation of jobs lost to steel tariffs was higher than the total number working in the steel industry. And that, of course, is why we don’t like tariffs on imports. They make us all poorer and get some number of us kicked out of our jobs too. Yes, this is true even if the importer is “playing unfair” or dumping.

It is imports which make us richer. That’s why we should never be taking actions which make imports more expensive.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...obs-becoming-poorer-as-a-result/#744f048f27d5
 
Tariffs applied to certain imported items at 8-30% is different from tariffs applied to certain China items which is at rate of 522%
That is the difference of 2002 and 2016.

they bring different messages, the latter ( 2016 ) means We banned China steel sale in US.
While the 2002 decision is to protect the US steel makers.
 
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US need to take out come Chinese factories with a drone..these low quality factories are seriously destroying the global trade with inferior products and also the environment..I was surprised last week that the biggest copper tube manufacturer of CHina could not pass quality test of my client and as a result was rejected...50% of the products churned out by China and India are practically junk..
 
Strange that the author compare the job lost AS A WHOLE and blame it on the high steel price as a result of the tariff...

Factory close for many reason, steel price is one of them, but to say steel price hike contribute to all 202,000 job lost during that same year is absurd, as if no other factor plays a role (Bad management, economic downturn since 2002 and etc)

It's like I got on a car as a passenger and that car crash, the driver blame me for the crash and said he never crashed before I get into his car,.......
 
US need to take out come Chinese factories with a drone..these low quality factories are seriously destroying the global trade with inferior products and also the environment..I was surprised last week that the biggest copper tube manufacturer of CHina could not pass quality test of my client and as a result was rejected...50% of the products churned out by China and India are practically junk..
Agreed with the quality part.
 
UK and EU urged to act on Chinese steel dumping after US raises duty on imports
Unions say Britain and EU must ‘stop treading on egg shells’ and follow lead of US which has raised tariffs to 522%

Wednesday 18 May 2016 13.01 BST Last modified on Wednesday 18 May 2016 22.00 BST

Britain’s steel trade body and unions have called on the UK and the EU to take urgent action to stop Chinese steel dumping, after the US government increased tariffs to more than 500%.

In an escalation of the trade spat, the US has raised its tariffs on imports of cold rolled steel from China to 522% from 266%, citing a refusal to cooperate with anti-dumping investigations. By comparison, the EU has imposed provisional tariffs on China of 16% for cold rolled steel, which is used to manufacture cars and appliances and in construction.

The UK is one of 14 countries that have been blocking EU plans to impose tougher sanctions on cheap Chinese steel imports. Sajid Javid, the business secretary, has said it would not be right for the EU to scrap regulations known as the “lesser duty rule”, which some countries want to end in order to allow higher tariffs on Chinese steel.

Gareth Stace, director of UK Steel, welcomed the US move. He said: “The United States has quickly identified the problem with China dumping steel and imposed effective and robust trade barriers. The EU has been slower and the result is we’re still haggling over tariffs and action to prevent unfairly traded Chinese steel. Britain and the EU need to stop treading on egg shells and take decisive action following America’s impressive lead.”

A spokesman for the Community trade union said that unfairly traded Chinese steel was still hurting UK and European steel producers.

“We have repeatedly said that there needs to be swifter and more robust action by the European commission but unfortunately, it’s the UK government that is among the countries preventing this happening due to its continued opposition to ending the lesser duty rule.”

At the Unite union, Tony Burke, assistant general secretary with responsibility for manufacturing, said: “The continued failure to agree to tariffs for Chinese steel reflects really badly on the UK government. It sends out all the wrong signals while we are working day in, day out to try to secure a future for the sector.

“On this, the UK government cannot face two ways. It has to decide where its priorities lie: in giving this core industry a fighting chance or cosying up to the Chinese? When it comes to steel it cannot do both.”

US and EU unions, including Unite, will meet at an event in Frankfurt next week to come up with a common approach to China.

..............
 
if China wants to sell it's steel at ridiculously low prices then we should just take them up on their offer.

use the cheap steel to built up our infrastructure and put our men and women to work.

but there is a reason why they are selling it so cheaply in the first place


http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/29/news/economy/china-steel-coal-jobs/


Chinese are being laid off by the millions in the coal,iron ore, steel sectors. most of these companies aren't making a profit but huuuuge loses and are going bankrupt.

so I want your steel China :china::usflag:
 
if China wants to sell it's steel at ridiculously low prices then we should just take them up on their offer.

use the cheap steel to built up our infrastructure and put out men and women to work.

but there is a reason why they are selling it so cheaply in the first place


http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/29/news/economy/china-steel-coal-jobs/


Chinese are being laid off by the millions in the coal,iron ore, steel sectors. most of these companies aren't making a profit but huuuuge loses and are going bankrupt.

so I want your steel China :china::usflag:

We shouldnt pay a single cent to save China steel industry, while our workers need jobs.
 

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