China's steel industry strongly opposes the U.S. practice of politicizing and instrumentalizing the steel trade, the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said Thursday.
In addition to existing Section 301 tariffs, the United States announced new tariffs on a range of Chinese imports, including some steel and aluminum products, saying that "high-quality, low-emission U.S. products are being undermined by artificially low tariffs." Low-cost, higher-emission Chinese alternatives.”
This year, Section 301 tariffs on certain steel and aluminum products will increase from 0-7.5 percent to 25 percent.
CISA said China's steel sector has always been focused on meeting domestic demand and has strived for technological progress and environmental transformation, boosting 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 technology, technical level, production capacity, product quality and energy consumption. Chinese steel mills have also invested heavily in 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, CISA said.
Meanwhile, the share of Chinese steel exports to the US is very small, as is the share of US steel imports from China, the association said.
Despite numerous tariffs levied by the US side, some US processing plants still import Chinese steel products, and this market behavior is based on their own needs, CISA noted.
In September 2020 A WTO panel ruled that Section 301 tariffs violated WTO rules. But instead of correcting the situation, the United States increased tariffs even further.
“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,” CISA said.
China's steel industry calls on the United States to abandon the practice of politicizing steel trade and to carry out cooperation that truly contributes to the development of the industry, CISA added.
