China iron, steel association slams US tariff hikes

The Chinese steel industry strongly opposes the US practice of politicizing and instrumentalizing steel trade, said the China Iron and Steel Industry Association on Thursday.

On top of existing tariffs under Section 301, the United States on Tuesday announced new tariffs on a variety of imports from China, including some steel and aluminum products, saying that "high-quality, while low-emissions US products are undercut by artificially low-priced Chinese alternatives produced with higher emissions."

The tariff rate on certain steel and aluminum products under Section 301 will increase from 0-7.5 percent to 25 percent this year.

The CISA said China's steel sector has always focused on meeting domestic demand and has been pursuing technological progress and green transformation, galvanizing the global steel sector, as well as upstream and downstream industries.

The association said China's steel sector leads the world in many aspects such as plant design, process flow, technical level, manufacturing capacity, product quality and energy consumption. Chinese steel enterprises also have spent heavily on ultra-low emission transformation projects to meet the world's most stringent environmental standards.

Ultra-low emission transformation has covered more than 900 million tons of production capacity, of which 450 million tons have completed such transformation, amid the sector's efforts to boost green and low-carbon production, the CISA said.

Meanwhile, the proportion of China's steel exports to the United States is very small, and so is the share of US steel imports from China, the association said.

Despite multiple tariffs levied by the US side, some US downstream enterprises are still importing Chinese steel products and these are market behaviors based on their own needs, the CISA noted.

In September 2020, a WTO panel ruled that the Section 301 tariffs violated WTO rules. But instead of correcting it, the United States has further hiked tariffs.

"The non-market behavior of the United States has distorted the global steel trade order and is not conducive to the healthy development of the global steel industry," the CISA said.

The Chinese steel industry urges the United States to abandon the practice of politicizing the steel trade and carry out cooperation that is truly conducive to the development of the industry, the CISA added.