While the US International Trade Commission (US ITC) has recently judged that carbon steel and alloy steel imports from South Korea, France, Japan, Italy, Brazil and China have caused substantive damage to US industry, an official at China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) has pointed out that in 2015 China’s exports of carbon steel to the US totaled 66,000 mt, with a total value of $70.26 million, accounting for six percent and eight percent, respectively, of the total US carbon steel import tonnage and value. Meanwhile, China’s steel exports to the US market mostly consist of die block steel and flat steel products which are currently not produced in America, and so it is groundless to consider China’s exports of steel products to the US as causing substantive damage to the US industry.
The MOC official said that overcapacity is a global industrial problem that needs to be dealt with through dialogue and cooperation, while China has always opposed trade protectionism and expects the US to abide by international commitments to push forward trade liberalization, adding that trade protectionism will do little to resolve the issue.