IABr, the Brazilian steel association, will send a delegation to the US to discuss the nation’s Section 232 investigation, the trade group told SteelOrbis on Thursday.
“The goal is to talk with US authorities to include Brazil in the exemption list of barrier imports detailed in the document released on February 16 by the US Department of Commerce,” the steel association said.
IABr said representatives from the local steel association will be included, as well as executives from steelmakers such as Usiminas, Ternium and Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN).
The delegation will include: Alexandre de Campos Lyra, chairman of IABr; Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, president of IABr; Leonardo Quintao, Brazilian House Representative; Roy Vivian, Usiminas board member; Pedro Teixeira, Ternium board member; and Thomaz Zanotto, CSN board member.
Brazil was one of 12 countries named in one of the US Department of Commerce’s Section 232 trade remedies, which would impose a 53 percent tariff on all steel products from those countries, in addition to any existing AD/CVD margins. Another option involved a quota that would reduce steel import tonnages from those 12 countries to 63 percent of their 2017 steel exports to the US.
The Trump administration has until April 11 to make a decision on tariffs or quotas.