US trying to milk a bull with steel tariffs
It is irresponsible and groundless for some people in the United States to attribute the difficulty the US steel industry faces to China’s overcapacity and dumping. Indulging in turning China into a scapegoat without looking into problems intrinsic to the US steel industry is nothing but an ostrich policy. To impose punitive tariffs on China’s steel exports will be to no avail in revitalizing the steel industry in the US.
The decline of the US steel industry’s competitiveness is an undeniable fact. But it is because of the shrinking of domestic demand, the rise of production costs in the US and the slow technological and equipment upgrading.
That the steel industry is no longer a pillar industry is a result of the evolution of its economic structure.
Likewise, China’s steel output has risen fast since 2000, which should primarily be attributed to the huge demand stemming from China’s industrialization and urbanization, just as the US experienced after World War II.
China has a complete steel industrial system and strong competitive edge in production costs, technology, equipment and product development, which constitute the foundation for Chinese steel exports’ comparative advantages in the global market.
As the largest steel consumer, China is now paying more attention to improving the quality of its steel products and its production technology and efficiency, and reducing the industry’s emissions and pollution.
China does not encourage the exporting of large amounts of steel products. The government even levies additional export tariffs in some cases to control steel exports, which fell by 34.3 percent year-on-year in 2017. China exports 9 percent of the steel produces, while about 40 percent of steel output in some developed countries is exported. And China’s steel exports mainly find their way to Southeast Asia, East Asia, Middle East and South America, not the US. It is wrong, perhaps intentionally so, to blame China for the US steel industry’s business distress.