Ahead of the 12th G20 meeting due to take place on July 7-8 in Hamburg, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) has called on the participating heads of state and government to renew their commitment to free, fair and rules-based international trade, and to deal concretely with global steel overcapacity.
Regarding the Section 232 investigation in the US and persistent dumping fuelled by global overcapacity, EUROFER director general Axel Eggert stated that governments must be ever more committed to enforcing the rules guaranteeing free and fair international trade, adding that EU-based steel producers have long proven themselves to be reliable suppliers.
“The 3.2 million mt of steel we export to the US are sold under free and fair market conditions. European steel producers are in no sense a threat to US national security. Only a very small proportion of the products exported have any plausible defense or security application. Section 232 is the wrong tool for the US to deploy to defend its steel from the dumping driven by global steel overcapacity, particularly if it harms the US’ allies,” stated the EUROFER director general.
Mr. Eggert concluded that, until global overcapacity is dealt with in a coherent way, trade defense instruments will continue to play an outsize role in preventing dumping, while stating that EUROFER continues to appeal to the European Commission to strictly impose measures on countries, not just China, that sustain overcapacities and that dump unfairly low-priced steel in the EU market. He also said that EUROFER will make the same request if the US decision on Section 232 impacts upon EU producers or causes the diversion of US-bound products to the EU market.