AdobeStock/Pavel Losevsky

Beijing’s focus on supply-side reforms of China’s giant aluminum industry has been a prime mover for the metal price this year.

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But primary metal price rises aside, of more concern to aluminum consumers should be the nature and extent of China’s aluminum semi-finished product exports. There have been various facets to China’s product exports, as Andy Home of Reuters succinctly explained in an article last week.

On the one hand, the growing volume of product exports has ignited considerable trade tensions with the U.S. and Europe. In the case of the former, the article reports, it led to a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and, more recently, a Section 232(b) investigation under the Trump administration. In Europe, expiring duties have been rolled over on imports of aluminum wheels from China and further action sought by trade bodies on a range of aluminum products.

Meanwhile, rumours that an indeterminate but significant proportion of China’s semi-finished product exports were in fact primary metal being illegally classified as semi-finished product to circumvent export duties on unwrought aluminum have at least partially been vindicated, as a focus has been brought to bear on a massive stock of aluminum held in Mexico last year that appeared to originate from Vietnam but with links to China.

Home explained that China’s exports of commodity code 7604 (bars rods and extruded profiles) have mushroomed from just over 6,000 tons in 2012/2013 to 463,000 tons in 2015 and 510,000 tons in 2016. Some of that metal appeared in Mexico last year before media attention encouraged the metal to be recycled back to an obscure port in Vietnam. Read more

Dean A. Pinkert is a partner in Hughes Hubbard’s International Trade practice. He is a former Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission. Pinkert was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2007, and was designated Vice Chairman by President Obama in 2014.

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As a commissioner, Pinkert participated in numerous anti-dumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard investigations, including the special safeguard investigation of passenger tires that resulted in import relief for the domestic tire industry and was upheld by the World Trade Organization. He participated in an unprecedented number of final determinations in Section 337 investigations during his tenure, notably dissenting in an electronic devices case that went to President for policy review. President Obama, relying on many of the factors cited in the dissent, overruled the commission for the first time since 1987.

Former ITC Vice Chair A. Dean Pinkert. Source: Hughes Hubbard.

Pinkert spoke with MetalMiner Editor Jeff Yoders by phone about several issues facing metals producers and manufacturers, including global steel and aluminum overcapacity and how the new Trump administration can approach trade and overcapacity issues. This is the final post in our three-part series that covers border-adjustment and tax policy.

JY: The reason you might want to avoid a VAT is that it would apply to all transactions, right? It would be on individuals and not companies.

DP: Think of it as the difference between a sales tax in the United States and an income tax. They are completely different. A VAT is essentially a national sales tax. We have sales taxes but the issue we’re talking about is the corporate income tax. If the U.S. adopted a VAT it would be a huge change so the idea here is to stay within the corporate income tax concept, but make some tweaks so that U.S. companies aren’t disadvantaged relative to foreign companies. Because we’re not talking about a VAT, though, you might get a different outcome at the World Trade Organization when it’s challenged by another country.

A VAT would be a big change. We are getting into some areas of policy that I’m not an expert on here, but there are all sorts of other issues that go way beyond the issue, but from a trade perspective the idea of a border adjustment is supposed to neutralize the advantage that VAT tax countries might have in international trade. The WTO may come to the conclusion that, even though a border-adjustment does have some features of a VAT, it’s still not acceptable because it might be viewed as an export subsidy. Read more

Dean A. Pinkert is a partner in Hughes Hubbard’s International Trade practice. He is a former Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission. Pinkert was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2007, and was designated Vice Chairman by President Obama in 2014.

Benchmark Your Current Metal Price by Grade, Shape and Alloy: See How it Stacks Up

As a commissioner, Pinkert participated in numerous anti-dumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard investigations, including the special safeguard investigation of passenger tires that resulted in import relief for the domestic tire industry and was upheld by the World Trade Organization. He participated in an unprecedented number of final determinations in Section 337 investigations during his tenure, notably dissenting in an electronic devices case that went to President for policy review. President Obama, relying on many of the factors cited in the dissent, overruled the commission for the first time since 1987.

Former ITC Vice Chair A. Dean Pinkert. Source: Hughes Hubbard.

Pinkert spoke with MetalMiner Editor Jeff Yoders by phone about several issues facing metals producers and manufacturers, including global steel and aluminum overcapacity and how the new Trump administration can approach trade and overcapacity issues. This is part two of our discussion, which focuses on cases that rise to the WTO. See part one here if you missed it.

Jeff Yoders: Is there a risk to elevating any such case to the WTO of essentially spending the money and hiring the lawyers, only to lose the case?

Dean Pinkert: First, there are two types of cases. When there’s a decision by the U.S. Trade Representative‘s office to file a case with the WTO, we’ll call those offensive cases. They are filing a complaint with the WTO saying that another country is violating its trade commitments. By the way, I think the Obama administration was very aggressive at developing and filing cases of that kind.

There is  another type, and these are what I was referring to earlier, where the U.S. has an investigation of something, concludes that a trade remedy is appropriate, imposes that trade remedy and then gets sued and it goes to the WTO. In 2002, when the steel safeguard relief was put into place, the U.S. was taken to the WTO by our trading partners and, ultimately, the WTO ruled against the safeguard. It was then withdrawn, although the Bush administration said the reason it was withdrawn was because it achieved its aim of giving the domestic industry some breathing space so that they could regain profitability, not because of the loss.

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I was talking more about that more defensive posture in the WTO when I was talking about safeguards.

JY: There’s a lot of talk about a border-adjustment tax right now. Many policy papers are calling the scheme very similar to a value-added tax but only on companies. Is there a chance that such an idea might run afoul of WTO rules?

DP: We don’t now exactly what it would look like or what the final measure, if there is one, would be. We don’t know how the WTO would react to it, either, but it’s possible that the WTO would consider it an export subsidy and, if it did, then that would have some serious consequences because there is a list of various kinds of subsidies, particularly export subsidies, in the WTO agreement. If it was found to be an export subsidy there would be considerable consequences for the U.S.

But, it’s important to note that we don’t even know what the border adjustment tax will look like yet. We would have to see. Read more

We had a chance to sit down and discuss the issues facing members of the Steel Manufacturers Association with SMA President Philip K. Bell at the recent S&P Global Platts Steel Markets North America conference here in Chicago. Bell also currently serves on the  Department of Commerce International Trade Advisory Committee on Steel (ITAC 12), advising the Secretary of Commerce and United States Trade Representative on trade policy, trade agreements, and other trade related matters that benefit U.S. businesses, workers, and the economy.

Philip K. Bell. Source: SMA

Jeff Yoders: We’ve heard a lot about North American Free Trade Agreement and what changes to it might mean in the last two days. How do your members feel about reopening NAFTA to changes?

Philip K. Bell: NAFTA is over 20 years old and it’s probably time to look at it again. A lot has changed over the last two decades. We hope the approach that the administration takes is one that’s more methodical and takes into account that not only are Canada and Mexico two of our biggest trade partners but, when it comes to the steel industry, they ARE our two largest trade partners.

There is a lot of integration in this area. You have a lot of steel producers that either have businesses in Mexico such as Gerdau, ArcelorMittal and Nucor — through its joint venture JFE — and you have a lot of companies that want to do business there like Steel Dynamics which is hoping to increase its presence in that market by importing flat-rolled into Mexico. Read more

Chinese steel exports tumbled to a three-year low in February, customs data showed last week, lower than expectations, as steelmakers in the world’s top producer shifted to meeting rising demand at home.

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Shipments for the month were 5.75 million metric tons, the lowest since February 2014, data from the General Administration of Customs showed. It was down 29.1% from a year ago and down 22.5% from January.

Duterte Wants Mining Compromise

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said recently he hopes there will be a “happy compromise” between the mining industry and protecting the environment, throwing support to Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Regina Lopez will appear before Congress ahead of her confirmation hearing. Lopez is under pressure because she has closed nearly half the nation’s mines.

German Dominguez

There’s been a lot of talk about President Trump’s “border tax” lately as it relates to reshoring manufacturing to the U.S. and financing “great, great” border walls, and my colleague Jeff Yoders has done a bang-up job covering the gamut of the Trump administration’s proposed policies in general.

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On our sister site Spend Matters, we tried to get closer to the bottom of the whole south-of-the-border tax issue, which opened up a can of worms — and devolved into golf analogies.

But what does it all mean for U.S and Mexican manufacturers and their future strategies?

Q&A With German Dominguez, Independent Advisor and LatAm Sourcing Expert

We caught up with German Dominguez, an independent sourcing advisor helping U.S. manufacturers to best-cost-country-source direct materials where it is most advantageous in Latin America, mainly within The Pacific Alliance region (Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile) — the largest emerging markets economic bloc in Latin America. Read more

The Trump administration is developing a national trade policy that would seek to diminish the influence of the World Trade Organization in the U.S. and champion American law as a way to take on trading partners it blames for unfair practices, according to a draft document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

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In his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, Trump said he wouldn’t let American workers and businesses be taken advantage of. “I believe strongly in free trade but it also has to be fair trade,” he said.

The Trump administration’s trade policy is forming. Source: Adobe Stock/Argus.

Some business groups and republicans who back traditional trade policy have hoped the new administration would moderate its most aggressive policy proposals to protect U.S. industries.

Departure From Previous Trade Policy

However, the policy contained in a draft document due to be published any day now, represents a dramatic departure from the Obama administration, which emphasized international economic rules and the authority of the Geneva-based WTO, an international body that regulates trade and resolves disputes among its members. Armed with what it sees as a broad mandate, the administration is moving forward with rules that would favor U.S. law over the conflict resolution mechanisms of the WTO. Read more

An Indonesian Finance Ministry official said the government may not be done tinkering with export tax rules involving raw ore just yet. The island nation’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry partially lifted a ban on raw ore exports late last week.

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“We want the export duties to push domestic processing. That’s the principle,” Suahasil Nazara, head of the Fiscal Policy Office at the Finance Ministry, told reporters, adding that the taxes were “not just for increasing state revenues. There’s a high possibility we will continue with a scheme that has layers, depending on completion of smelters.”

Outokumpu Adds to North American Stainless Rebar Line

Outokumpu recently unveiled a new stainless rebar offering for the North American market at the World of Concrete trade show in Las Vegas.

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Following an expansion of its stainless rebar capabilities at its facilities in Richburg, S.C., Outokumpu will now sell stainless rebar in coil, cut-to-length or in bent shapes. The Richburg facility has capabilities to cover a full range of rebar dimensions between sizes #3 and #8 (from .375 inches to 1 inch) and lengths up to 60 feet, and will offer short lead times for customers in North America.

Indonesia issued significant new mining rules last Thursday that will relax its ban on exports of nickel ore. Over the weekend, I went to check analysts’ opinions on this new development. Not surprisingly, almost everyone thinks this is bearish news for nickel prices.

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I am often a contrarian and this time, of course, I have a different opinion. I think the outcome of this revision is bullish for prices. What’s more, I think this is a great opportunity to buy nickel since prices might trade above today’s levels for the rest of the year.

Indonesian Nickel Ban

Before we get to analyze the price impact of the new rules, let’s quickly review what the ban was about in the first place:

Indonesia imposed an export ban for unprocessed material — essentially raw ore — back in 2014. “A year before the ban kicked in, Indonesia exported around 60 million [metric] tons of nickel ore,” according to Reuters. Nickel ore contains an average of 1 to 3.5% of nickel. Indonesia banned exports to encourage downstream investment as this would eventually be better for the country, as it would generate more revenue as the material is processed domestically and it would build a local processing industry. Read more

Indonesia introduced new rules last week that will allow exports of nickel ore and bauxite and concentrates of other minerals under certain conditions in a sweeping policy shift by the key global supplier, Reuters reported.

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A ban on unprocessed ore exports was imposed in 2014 to, the thinking went, encourage investment in mills and smelters in the islands. The government of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has faced a hefty budget deficit since and missed its 2016 revenue target by $17.6 billion.

The resumption of shipments may have been drafted to help stop the gap.

The new regulations, which took effect on Wednesday, sent nickel prices tumbling more than 5% to a four-month low of $9,660 a metric ton before they recovered.

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The rules include broad changes to permit extensions, which may now be applied for up to five years in advance of expiration, as well as new divestment requirements.