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President Trump's 25% tariffs he imposed on Monday on all imports of steel and aluminum in the United States will mainly clash with American allies, but in their minds, China, his longtime nemesis It will collide with.
The top five steel suppliers to the US market in January were Canada, followed by Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Germany. Canada is also leading the export of aluminum to the US, but the United Arab Emirates, Russia and China are far behind.
China does not export much steel or aluminum directly to the US. The succession of decisions by the President and the Commerce Department has already imposed many tariffs on steel from China. Tariffs have also been rising recently in China's aluminum. Last September, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. raised existing tariffs on many Chinese steel and aluminum products by up to 25%.
However, China controls the global steel and aluminum industries. Its vast, modern factory is as much of both metals and more each year, as it combines other parts of the world. Most of it is used within China's borders, building everything from skyscrapers and ships to washing machines and cars.
However, China's steel and aluminum exports have been increasing recently as the economy is struggling and depriving domestic demand. Many of these low-cost exports went to American allies like Canada and Mexico. Other Chinese metal exports have gone to developing countries like Vietnam. Vietnam will purchase a huge amount of semi-machined steel from China, end it and re-export it as Vietnamese steel to buyers around the world.
China's rise in exports is disrupting US producers and labor unions.
“China's overcapacity has overwhelmed the global market and seriously injured American producers and workers,” said Michael Wessel, a longtime trade adviser at United Steelworkers in the United Steelworkers in America.
China's Foreign Ministry had little to say specifically about the planned steel and aluminum tariffs during its daily briefing on Monday. “Let me emphasize that protectionism is not connected anywhere. Guo Zi-Kung, a spokesman for the ministry, said:
The planned tariffs come a week after President Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports from China. Last week, China announced it would impose retaliatory tariffs that took effect on US liquefied natural gas, coal, agricultural machinery and other products.
Nick Trellolico, a senior steel trade officer at the Reagan administration, said that China's gluttony stemmed from an extraordinary boom in steel factories that began in the early 1990s and lasted about 15 years. Germany. He is now a consultant who advises investment companies and companies that buy many steel.
Since the 1940s, no country has ordered the world's steel industry on the scale of today's China. The US made half of the world's steel back then, but its share has since dropped below 5%.
For years, China's construction industry used enormous amounts of steel. The building boom produced abundant housing for the country's 1.4 billion people, and plenty of empty apartments for another 300 million people.
The overhang of empty apartments is currently driving housing market conflicts and a rapid stall in construction. Desperate to avoid closure, Chinese factories responded with a surge in steel exports to countries around the world. They have accepted the low and low prices of steel over the past few years, causing global erosion of prices.
The fall in prices is hurting America's steel industry, a politically powerful constituency in major electoral regions. United Steel Workers of America is headquartered in Pittsburgh, at the heart of a long-standing Pennsylvania industry base and has proven to be the center of recent presidential elections. American Steel, the emblem of a different previous role in American iron production, is also based in Pennsylvania.
The repulsion of steel trade against China is not limited to the US. Brazil, Canada, Indonesia and Turkey have raised tariffs sharply on steel from China over the past year.
During his first term, President Trump imposed a 25% tariff and a 10% tariff on steel on aluminum imports from around the world. He was then exempt from tariffs from large steel producers such as South Korea, Australia and Brazil in exchange for imposed quotas on how many tons of steel are shipped to the US each year. However, he left tariffs placed for China.
Trade protection has increased capacity by about a fifth over the past six years, supporting the American steel industry, which has built modern steel factories. Older, less efficient mills are beginning to operate with fewer driving than fully produced ones.
By the last week of January, US steel factories were operating at 74.4% of their capacity, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, a Washington-based industrial group.
siyi Zhao Contributed research.
