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Trump’s tariff gambit to face first political test in heart of steel country – by David Shribman (Globe and Mail – March 5, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Donald Trump said last week that he welcomed a trade war. This week, he will find out if he gets one. And next week he may discover if his initiative to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, motivated as much by domestic politics as by economic policy, will have the intended effect at the ballot box and boost Republican electoral prospects.

This week the United States’ largest trading partners, including Canada, will begin to learn the details of the Trump plan, which White House officials originally insisted would provide no carve-outs or exemptions, even for countries with deep and well-established trade relationships.

But the insight that Allan Gotlieb, Canada’s ambassador to the United States from 1981 to 1989, added to the permanent wisdom of Washington may apply here and could work to Canada’s benefit: No decision in the American capital ever is final.

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Don’t treat us like North Korea: Canadian aluminum producers offended by Trump – by Jeff Lagerquist (CTV News – March 3, 2018)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

A group representing Canada’s aluminum producers is angry that a seven-decade trade relationship with the U.S. is being undermined by President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on foreign metals.

Trump announced the tariffs on Thursday, telling a group of U.S. metal industry executives that imported steel will be slapped with a 25 per cent tariff and foreign aluminum will face a 10 per cent tariff. Canada is the top supplier of both to the U.S., with $15 billion a year in combined sales.

Trump has partially justified the proposed duties with a Cold War-era law that was meant to ensure the U.S. is not forced to rely on imports from unfriendly nations if war disrupts global trade. The plans for tariffs on aluminum and steel follow a report from the U.S. Department of Commerce that suggests cheap imports are a national security threat.

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U.S. unveils steep tariffs, raising peril of trade war – by Steven Chase, Greg Keenan and Adrian Morrow (Globe and Mail – March 2, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

U.S. President Donald Trump is firing the first shot in what could amount to a global trade war, announcing plans to slap hefty tariffs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum as a means of protecting American jobs.

The Canadian government was quick to threaten retaliation against the United States if steel and aluminum from Canada are included in the administration’s trade action.

Mr. Trump said on Thursday he intends to levy 25-per-cent tariffs on steel imports and 10-per-cent on aluminum imports, sending U.S. stock markets tumbling over fears of global retaliation and higher inflation.

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‘Trade wars are good, and easy to win’: Trump’s tariff threat sends shock waves around world – by Jonathan Stearns and Thomas Biesheuvel (Financial Post/Bloomberg – March 2, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Trump’s aggressive stance has stoked fears of trade retaliation and roiled global markets. Here are the developments so far

After President Donald Trump said the U.S. plans to impose 25 per cent tariffs on steel imports and 10 per cent on aluminum, the shock waves are being felt around the world. Asia’s up in arms, the European Union and Canada are pushing back, and there are plenty of forecasts that U.S. consumers are set to pay a whole bunch more for all sorts of purchases. Think beer cans to autos.

While the exact form of the curbs remains unclear — especially whether U.S. allies will win exemptions — the reaction on Friday from outside the world’s biggest economy has been largely negative. Beyond metals, the biggest risk is a tit-for-tat trade war, which draws in other products, possibly foods. We’re following developments here. The time-stamps are New York.

Donald Trump’s plan to curb U.S. imports of steel on national-security grounds threatens the foundations of the World Trade Organization, warned the European Steel Association.

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Trump says U.S. to impose steep tariffs on steel, aluminum imports – by Steve Holland and Ginger Gibson (Reuters U.S. – March 1, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump announced on Thursday he would impose hefty tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to protect U.S. producers, risking retaliation from major trade partners like China, Europe and neighboring Canada as well as helping to trigger a large selloff on Wall Street.

Trump said the duties of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum would be formally announced next week although White House officials later said some details still needed to be ironed out.

Trump believes the tariffs will safeguard American jobs but many economists say the impact of price increases for consumers of steel and aluminum, such as the auto and oil industries, will be to destroy more jobs than they create.

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Canada Signals ‘Trade War’ in Seeking Steel, Aluminum Exemptions – by Danielle Bochove, Josh Wingrove and Kristine Owram (Bloomberg News – March 1, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Canada is vowing to retaliate if U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his pledge to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum producers — while holding out hope that it could be exempt.

Trump said he intends to slap a 25 percent duty on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum in order to protect the national industry, though details remain unclear. His words sent U.S.-based producers rallying but could hurt companies that ship steel and aluminum from Canada, including Rio Tinto Group and Stelco Holdings Inc., without an exemption.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that Canada buys more than half of American steel, resulting in a $2 billion surplus for the U.S. She also said it’s “entirely inappropriate” for the U.S. to consider the country a threat to national security.

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U.S. Slaps Duties on China Aluminum Foil as Xi Ally Arrives (Bloomberg News – February 27, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The U.S. Commerce Department slapped stiff duties on aluminum foil from China after concluding that the country’s producers are receiving unfair subsidies and dumping the product in the American market.

Duties from 49 percent to 106 percent will be imposed on Chinese aluminum foil for selling the product in the U.S. below fair market value, the department said in a statement Tuesday. The Trump administration also set duties of 17 percent to 81 percent for the unfair subsidies that the U.S. has concluded Chinese producers receive.

The issue now goes before the U.S. International Trade Commission, which is expected to have the final say on the injury claims in a vote scheduled for March 15, the Aluminum Association, which is based in Virginia, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

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Rusal quest for value to dent Glencore’s aluminum clout – by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Polina Devitt (Reuters U.S. – February 27, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Mining giant Glencore’s deal to buy aluminum from Rusal will be renewed from 2019, but the tonnage is likely to be much lower as the Russian producer taps into growing demand for value-added products, two sources close to the matter said.

Unless it sources from additional suppliers, the reduction in volume will weaken the leading position held for years by Swiss-based Glencore in the global aluminum market.

Rusal, controlled by billionaire Oleg Deripaska and co-owned by Glencore, is expected to cut the volume in any new deal by 25-50 percent from the 14.5 million tonnes that covers the seven years from 2012 to 2018.

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Why Indian Aluminium Firms Are Banking on Clusters – by Special India Correspondent (Aluminium Insider – February 21, 2018)

https://aluminiuminsider.com/

Leading Indian aluminium companies are turning to the cluster model to tap downstream investments and diversify aluminium applications in the country.

Both state run entities National Aluminium Company (Nalco) and Vedanta Ltd, the Indian arm of London listed metals conglomerate Vedanta Resources Plc, are developing aluminium parks to offer a conducive ecosystem to players in the downstream space.

To lure the downstream industries, both primary aluminium producers are offering a suite of incentives ranging from discounted molten aluminium supplies to concessional land plots at the parks. India’s aluminium growth story is robust. Between 2015 and 2016, the country’s total aluminium consumption expanded by 18.75 per cent, riding on increased offtake in the electrical, transportation and construction sectors.

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Rusal’s Deripaska to Step Down and Focus on Norilsk Nickel – by Staff (Aluminium Insider – February 20, 2018)

https://aluminiuminsider.com/

Russian Federation industrialist Oleg Deripaska is to step down from his position as president of both En+ Group and U.C. Rusal, Russian and international media reported.

While RUSAL clarified that no such decision has been made yet and that the Company’s board will discuss executive changes on 22 February, sources told the media earlier this week that Deripaska will announce his departure from these two pursuits, retaining only his official capacity at GAZ Group, which is Russia’s premier producer of commercial vehicles. According to insiders, the move was in the works prior to news of the renewed fight for Norilsk Nickel.

The battle to control Norilsk has been an off-again, on-again affair for the last decade that began upon the exit of Mikhail Prokhorov from the firm. Prokhorov, who was Vladimir Potanin’s partner in the venture the time of his departure, left a partial ownership void when he stepped down in 2008. Although Potanin had his sights set on acquiring the then-unclaimed share of the enterprise, Deripaska’s Rusal purchased the interest instead.

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U.S. Commerce Wants Aluminum Tariff-Quota on Imports – by Joe Deaux and Andrew Mayeda (Bloomberg News – February 16, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Shares in U.S. aluminum and steel companies from Alcoa Corp. to Nucor Corp. surged after the U.S. Commerce Department recommended that President Donald Trump impose a range of restrictions on imports from tariffs to quotas.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday over the results of his department’s investigation, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross proposed a 24 percent global tariff on steel shipments coming into the U.S. and a 7.7 percent duty on aluminum imports. Trump has the latitude to choose between these types of options or even enter talks with producers to find solutions.

The recommendations pushed up Century Aluminum Co. as much as 11 percent, while Alcoa gained 5.5 percent. Aluminum on the London Metal Exchange rose as much as 2.4 percent as of 5:15 p.m. in London.

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Rio Tinto Confident U.S. Will Treat Canada Differently on Trade – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – February 7, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The head of Rio Tinto Group’s aluminum division is confident the Trump administration will recognize that Canada must be viewed differently when considering import tariffs on the metal and in Nafta talks.

“There’s a clear recognition of the strategic importance of the Canadian industry to the American manufacturing base,” Alf Barrios, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s aluminum division, said Wednesday in a phone interview. That view was expressed to him in conversations within the last few weeks, he said. “It is different than the other importing countries.”

In January, U.S. President Donald Trump received the findings of the eight-month “Section 232” investigation into whether aluminum imports pose a threat to national security.

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COLUMN-Five stand-outs in China’s base metals trade last year – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – January 29, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – China’s base metals imports stopped offering a simple, over-arching story line several years ago. The country has built out ever more processing capacity over the last decade, meaning that the “real” story is often what’s happening at the raw materials stage of the supply chain.

In cases such as aluminium, China has arguably constructed too much smelter capacity, to the point that the rest of the world has stopped caring about how much it imports but rather how much it exports.

Across the rest of the metallic complex, individual market dynamics have become ever more important, fracturing the Chinese trade picture into multiple, sometimes contradictory parts. Against an increasingly kaleidoscopic backdrop, here are five key take-aways from last year’s trade flows.

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COLUMN-What does looming US-China trade showdown mean for aluminium? – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – January 25, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Jan 25 (Reuters) – China is awash with aluminium. “Illegal” capacity has been closed and smelters in the region around Beijing are, to varying extents, curtailing output to comply with the winter environmental restrictions.

But stocks registered with the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) continue to build. They surged by 653,411 tonnes last year and were up another 30,000 tonnes at a fresh record high of 783,759 tonnes as of last Friday.

U.S. producer Alcoa told analysts on its Q1 conference call it is forecasting a 1.5-1.7 million tonne surplus in China this year, notwithstanding Beijing’s efforts to restrain capacity. It is also forecasting a bigger deficit of 2.0-2.2 million tonnes in the rest of the world, where visible stocks have been falling for many months.

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Commerce secretary gives Trump options to fight steel and aluminum dumping, including higher tariffs – by Lori Ann LaRocco (CNBC – January 22, 2018)

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has recommended to President Donald Trump a wide range of options to deal with aluminum and steel dumping in the U.S., including potentially higher tariffs, sources told CNBC.

The options also include specifically targeting “bad actors” in other countries that are active in imports of the metals. Trump and his administration announced the Section 232 investigation into steel and aluminum in April 2017. The investigation was to determine whether the imports posed a threat to the country’s national security.

Trump has 90 days to review the so-called 232 report’s findings and recommendations. The president would then decide on what course of action to take.

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