US threatens safeguard duty on flat steel products

The US move is prompted by the fact that Indian imports of flats surged to 140,000 tonnes— price range of $500-525 per tonne of galvanised sheets—during the period April to July this year, as against a total of 150,000 tonnes in entire 2001. The surge in Turkish and Indian imports have contributed to a recent decline in domestic flat-rolled prices, the US steel industry has said.

US steel companies including Gallatin Steel Company, IPSCO Steel Inc, Nucor Corp, Rouge Steel Company in a letter have urged the US Trade Representative to extend Section 201 tariffs on steel imports from India and Turkey on all flat-rolled steel, other than slab and tin mill products.

India along with other developing countries is exempt from any safeguard duties on all steel products (except carbon flanges) but can import up to three per cent of total US imports of a particular product, as per President George Bush’s Steel Products Proclamation of March 5, 2002.

“The Proclamation provided, however, if a surge in imports of a product from a developing country undermines the effectiveness of the pertinent safeguard measure, the measure will be modified to apply to such product from the country”, the letter says, adding “such a situation is now occurring with Turkey and India”.

The letter adds: Failure to apply 201 tariffs to imports of flat-rolled from India will result in more injury to the US industry and require the filing of more antidumping cases.

The letter notes that imports from India reached very high levels in 1999 and 2000 before antidumping duties were imposed on plate and hot-rolled sheets, respectively.

While Indian imports constituted 1.17 per cent of total flat-rolled imports in 2001 with 107,362 tonnes, the Indian share increased to 2.01 per cent for the first quarter of 2002 and to 3.47 per cent for the four-month period since relief began from April to July 2002.

“In the first seven months India has already shipped 138,538 tonnes, in excess of the total imports from India in 2001”, the letter says.

But Indian industry has contested these claims. “We can export up to 500,000 tonnes of galvanised sheets to the US till December, which is three per cent of its total imports of flats (15 million tonnes).

There is lack of clarity on the actual exports which have taken place, with the US side quoting a bloated figure. There is no cause for concern in the US,” a senior official of Essar Steel said.

“There are two sets of figures which are considered for exports to the US — arrival figures and shipment data. We do not know what is the basis for the US charges. We will discuss this in the meeting to be held soon,” said an official at Steel Authority of India.