In a full-page ad in the New York Times today, the CEO of Deacero urged the three North American leaders to focus on the "harmful, improper economic conduct of China" when they meet today in Washington.
Presidents Biden and Lopez Obrador and Prime Minister Trudeau are resuming the North American Leaders' Summit (nicknamed the Three Amigos Summit), a regular meeting that began in 2005 but was discontinued after the 2016 conclave.
In the ad, Raul Gutierrez, the CEO of Deacero, which has operations in Mexico and the US, urged the leaders “to explore ways to foster and strengthen North American supply chains to face the challenges of China and other countries. Let's substitute neighboring and competitive supply chains for long and fragile ones.”
In the form of an open letter, the ad also states that “a high priority” of the summit “should be to safeguard key industries. For example, Section 232 tariffs and other mechanisms to avoid circumvention on steel and derivatives should remain in effect until the North American manufacturers have recovered sufficient production and employment levels -- in other words, until there is a real solution to global steel excess capacity caused by China and other countries.”
Gutierrez notes that his own company is a “true USMA” business that has opened “a global trade and corporate affairs office in Washington, the first of its kind by a Mexican company” and that the firm's US operations team “consists of more than 800 employees across the country, with manufacturing plants in Houston and Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where our company Mid Continent is the largest domestic steel nails manufacturer.”
Deacero has an extensive North American supply chain, including buying scrap metal in the US, recycling it, and processing it in its Mexican mills to produce steel that is shipped back to its US facilities to make nails and other wire products.
“I have never been more optimistic about our countries and companies working together to increase growth, jobs, and shared prosperity,” said Gutierrez in the open letter.