US-EU press on with plan to tackle ‘dirty’ Chinese steel flooding markets

Name: Chinese-owned steel mill rains ‘thick, greasy’ dust on Serbian town facing rising cancer cases
Uploaded: 2021-11-29T12:30:25.000Z
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Senior US trade officials have doubled down on criticism of excess steel from China as the phase one deal nears expiry

US will begin negotiations with the EU to create ‘world’s first carbon-based sectoral agreement’ on steel and aluminium

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China, the world’s single biggest producer of both steel and aluminium, has long been accused of pumping cheap – and often subsidised – metal products into global markets. Photo: AP

Orange Wang

Published: 8:30pm, 29 Nov 2021

China’s “unfair trade practices” are once again in US crosshairs, with Washington indicating it will use a new metals alliance with the European Union (EU) to prevent Chinese dumping amid uncertainty over the next phase of bilateral trade talks.

In an op-ed published on Sunday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo took aim at cheap Chinese metals flooding global markets, lowering prices for American manufacturers and leading to the loss of 16,000 steel jobs in the US between January 2015 and October 2016.

To tackle the problem, the United States will begin negotiations with the EU to create “the world’s first carbon-based sectoral agreement on steel and aluminium trade.”

“The United States produces some of the cleanest steel in the world, while China produces some of the dirtiest,” they said.

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Chinese-owned steel mill rains ‘thick, greasy’ dust on Serbian town facing rising cancer cases

Late last month, Brussels and Washington announced a new metals deal that US President Joe Biden said would “restrict access to our markets for dirty steel, from countries like China”. he agreement notably combined climate and trade policy, while ending a years-long trade dispute over steel and aluminium tariffs.

China, by far the world’s single biggest producer of both steel and aluminium, has long been accused of pumping cheap – and often subsidised – metal products into global markets.

But the latest criticism by two senior US officials comes at a critical point, with the phase one trade deal set to expire in about one month.