Steelmakers in U.S. to File Complaints Over Alleged Tariff Evasion by Chinese Competitors

By John W. Miller 

Steel producers in the U.S. plan to file complaints with the Commerce Department on Friday and Monday alleging Chinese steelmakers have been routing metal shipments through Vietnam to avoid U.S. import tariffs, a lawyer for the steelmakers told The Wall Street Journal.

The petitions are backed by U.S. Steel Corp., Nucor Corp., AK Steel Holding Corp. and ArcelorMittal.

The complaints represent a new front in the campaign by American industry to stem a flood of excessive Chinese metal onto markets, which has caused factories, mills and smelters in the U.S. and Europe to lose money, lay off workers and sometimes close.

The complaints allege the Chinese have shipped steel to Vietnam, modified it, for example adding zinc to make it corrosion-resistant, and then sent it to the U.S., while paying Vietnam's U.S. tariff rate, which is much lower than China's.

The names of the Chinese steelmakers allegedly undertaking that practice will be kept confidential as part of the complaints, Paul Rosenthal of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, a lawyer for ArcelorMittal USA., said.

Under pressure from American steelmakers, the U.S. in the past year has imposed tariffs as high as 266% on at least four new categories of steel from China. Those tariffs "helped to restore balance to U.S. steel markets," said Bill Steers, a spokesman for Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, which operates large mills in Indiana and Alabama.

The Chinese embassy in Washington didn't respond to a request for comment.

The Commerce Department will have 45 days to decide whether to open an investigation. Under rules designed to prevent such a tariff-evading practice, known as circumvention, the department could expand tariffs on metal that originates in China and comes into the U.S. from Vietnam.

The Commerce Department said it couldn't comment on cases yet to be filed.

Lawyers for the steel producers in the U.S. began hearing reports of Chinese competitors routing metal shipments through Vietnam "soon after" they filed a request for tariffs on corrosion-resistant steel, Mr. Rosenthal said.

"With all the new tariffs, you're going to see more attempts at circumvention," he said. "And we're going to be very vigilant about addressing them." China, he added, is "not the only country attempting to circumvent."

Independent trade data appear to lend credence to the steelmaker claims. In the first six months of 2016, shipments of steel from Vietnam to the U.S. increased to 312,329 tons, from 25,756 tons. Over the same period, Chinese exports of steel to Vietnam rose 46% to 6.3 million tons from 4.3 million tons, according to data firm Global Trade Information Services.

The fight to contain the market glut of metals from China doesn't just concern steel. The Commerce Department is also investigating claims that China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd., one of China's biggest aluminum producers, improperly shipped aluminum through Mexico and transformed the metal at a plant in New Jersey to avoid U.S. import tariffs.

China Zhongwang has denied any improper activity.

China aggressively has built up its metal-making capacity under its industrialization push. It now produces and consumes roughly half the world's key industrial commodities: steel, aluminum, copper and zinc.

As the pace of its economic growth has slowed of late, China has found itself with excess capacity and has exported more to keep its plants going. In the first six months of 2016, Chinese steel exports rose 11% to 51.6 million tons, according to GTIS.

Despite promises to curb output, Chinese steelmakers appear to be increasing output. Chinese steel production rose 3% to 68.6 million tons in August from the same month a year ago, according to the World Steel Association.

Write to John W. Miller at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 22, 2016 18:45 ET (22:45 GMT)

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