Canada’s trading partners fighting steel safeguards

TORONTO Several of Canada’s international trading partners are pushing back against the country’s safeguards on imported steel, challenging the basis for the emergency restrictions and in some cases, requesting individual exemptions.

Turkey, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, the European Commission and Brazil have all filed documents with the Canadian International Trade Tribunal stating concerns about the provisional global tariffs and quotas imposed by Finance Minister Bill Morneau in October. The CITT, a quasi judicial body, is evaluating whether those temporary measures should be made “final” — a move that would extend their lifespan from a maximum of 200 days to up to three years. It began hearing arguments from stakeholders this week in Ottawa.

The federal government says the safeguards are needed to prevent a damaging flood of steel from being diverted to Canada as a result of U.S. tariffs. A rise in imports has already occurred in enough quantities to cause or threaten to cause injury to local firms, Canada says.

But in a submission to the CITT, the European Commission argues that the “vast majority” of critical data proving this has been withheld from trading partners. “In the present case a lot of information, in particular relating to imports and the economic indicators of the domestic industry, is kept confidential, which makes it completely impossible for the parties to understand the real picture of the situation ...,” states the EC, which co-ordinates trade policy for the European Union’s 28 member states.

In separate documents, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Brazil also raise the issue, with Russia saying the lack of data precludes it from formulating “its reasonable position in order to protect the interests of Russian producers and exporters within the framework of this investigation.”

In its filing, Russia says the public data that Canada does share fails to show sufficient increases in imports to justify the safeguard measures.

Russia and Brazil say their exports can’t be blamed for damaging Canada’s domestic industry. The UAE, Brazil and Turkey say their low level of shipments to Canada combined with their country profiles should entitle them to reprieves.