Steel pipe company CEOS push for waivers from Trump’s tariff

BAYTOWN, Texas — Joel Johnson examines the shipping labels on 35-ton coils of Americanmade steel that will be unspooled, bent and welded into rounded sections of pipe.

One's from Nucor, a mill in Arkansas. Another's from Steel Dynamics in Mississippi. But much harder to spot in the sprawling factory yard is the imported steel that's put his company in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump's bitter trade dispute with America's allies and adversaries.

Trump says his tariffs on steel, aluminum and other goods will put U.S. companies and workers on stronger footing by winding back the clock of globalization with protectionist trade policies. But the steel tariff — essentially a 25 percent tax — may backfire on the very people the president is aiming to help. The Commerce Department has been deluged with requests from 20,000 companies seeking exemptions. Johnson is the CEO of Borusan Mannesmann Pipe US, a company with Turkish roots that manufactures the welded pipe used by energy companies to pull oil and natural gas out of the earth. He has been fighting an uphill battle to get a twoyear exemption from Trump's tariff on steel imports.

Without a waiver, Johnson said, Borusan faces levies of up to $30 million a year — a staggering sum for a business with plans to expand.

“We don't have any proof we're being heard,” Johnson said.

Eighty miles southwest, in Bay City, global steel giant Tenaris also is seeking an exemption from the tariffs. The company churns out steel pipe in a $1.8 billion state-of-the-art facility that began operating late last year, using solid rods of steel called billets that are made in its mills in Mexico, Romania, Italy and Argentina. Of the four, only Argentina has agreed to limit steel shipments to the U.S. in exchange for being spared the tariff.