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Transatlantic cable
September 2017
43
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China only just makes it into the top ten steel exporters to
the USA by value. In every subcategory of traded steel, China
is little more than a footnote in terms of USA imports.
Mr Fickling considers DOC Secretary Ross to be on rmer
ground in his claim that China’s domestic steel glut is
contributing to the recent weakness in prices – but only
slightly. While China is certainly a big exporter of steel, by
far the greatest amount goes to other Asian countries, most
of them emerging economies that lack the capacity to meet
domestic demand.
The top ten importers of Chinese steel are all in Asia. To the
extent that prices of USA and Chinese steel tend to go hand
in hand, it is because both industries use raw materials – iron
ore, coking coal, scrap, natural gas – that are traded on a
busy global market.
“Isn’t there at least a case for whacking Chinese steel
producers as a message to [President] Trump’s base that he’s
standing up for their jobs?” Mr Fickling dismissed his own
query as “lame.”
The USA manufacturing sector comprises steel users as well
as steel producers, and ten times as many manufacturing
jobs as steel production jobs depend on steel consumption.
While primary steelmaking employs 385,000 Americans,
transforming that metal into fabricated parts, machinery and
vehicles accounts for some 4.1 million jobs. All things being
equal, the
Bloomberg
contributor asserted, those industries
stand to lose the most from the protectionist impulse that
would preclude overseas competition.
“The USA has everything to gain and little to lose from open
global markets,” wrote Mr Fickling, in summation. “In trying
to hurt China, Washington risks shooting itself in the foot.”
Elsewhere in steel . . .
Most of the steel from the dismantled eastern half of the
old San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge was sold, at $160 a
ton, and shipped to scrapyards in Asia. But the California
Department of Transportation (Caltrans) held back a few
choice pieces – about 450 tons’ worth of large beams and
struts – to award free to sculptors who promised to turn
them into local public art works.
Steve Rubenstein reported in the
San Francisco Chronicle
that 16
th
June was pickup day for sculptors with atbed
trucks at the Caltrans yard at the eastern end of the bridge.
Caltrans senior engineer Darryl Schram told the
Chronicle
it would be rewarding to see the old bridge reconstituted
around the Bay Area in the form of artistic barriers, benches,
sculptures and Stonehenges. The new span of the Bay Bridge
replaced a seismically unsound portion with a self-anchored
suspension bridge and a pair of viaducts.
In June, Governor Eric Greitens of Missouri signed into law
a bill giving electricity discounts to industrial companies
using large amounts of energy. The legislation also ensures
discounted energy rates to future Missouri high-intensity
industrial companies. The governor in May had called a
special session of the state legislature to lower electric rates
for a steel mill and aluminium plant planned for southeast
Missouri.