Trade

Trade shipping containers

Foreign government subsidies and other market-distorting policies have resulted in massive global steel overcapacity and repeated surges of steel imports in the U.S. market, particularly following global demand shocks. To address these ongoing challenges, AISI urges the following actions by the Biden administration and Congress:

  • Ensure the Section 232 remedy on steel imports remains in place and fully effective. Absent effective Section 232 relief, substantial overproduction of steel in China and other countries where there is significant government intervention in the steel sector will likely result in renewed injurious surges in steel imports, threatening viability of domestic steel producers and the U.S. national security.
  • Strengthen and aggressively enforce U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws, ensure adequate resources for the agencies responsible for enforcing these trade laws, and work to address transshipment, circumvention and evasion of trade remedy orders.
  • Support the enactment of legislation that further strengthens and updates U.S. trade remedy laws to reflect current economic realities and continue to allow the countervailing duty law to be applied to currency manipulation by foreign governments.
  • Press for binding commitments from China and other major steelmaking countries to eliminate steel excess capacity, to end subsidies specific to the steel sector and other market-distorting policies and practices, and to refrain from introducing new subsidy programs in the future.
  • Address trade-distorting policies and practices, including cross-border subsidies, that are fueling the rapid growth in new steel capacity by Chinese firms outside of China, such as in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia.
  • Continue to vigorously defend the practice of the United States treating China as a non-market economy (NME) for antidumping purposes, until China makes the necessary reforms to allow its economy to truly operate based on market principles.
  • Ensure full and effective enforcement of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to incentivize the use of American steel in manufacturing and to strengthen manufacturing supply chains.
  • Pursue WTO enforcement actions against foreign government policies and practices that are inconsistent with WTO obligations and distort trade in steel and steelmaking raw materials.
  • Take meaningful action to reform the WTO to address overreach by dispute resolution panels and the Appellate Body, particularly with regard to U.S. enforcement of its rights to remedy injurious dumping and subsidization.

Additional Resources