By David Lawder
MILWAUKEE, Sept 30 (Reuters) – US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Wednesday that a framework for coordinated action to combat excess steel capacity will be released at a Group of 20 trade ministers meeting this week, as countries seek to counter a flood of cheap Chinese production.
Greer told reporters after a meeting of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity that the so-called “Milwaukee Framework” will likely encourage countries to raise trade barriers to steel imports from countries with heavy excess capacity, such as China.
“Well, every country will do what they think is appropriate,” Greer said when asked whether most G20 countries had agreed to raise tariffs on Chinese steel. “We want to coordinate those measures. The United States has taken robust measures, and it probably makes sense for other countries to do that too.”
Details of the actions recommended in the framework were not immediately available.
Excess industrial capacity largely centered in China is a key theme of the US-led G20 ministerial meetings so far this year.
At a G20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, at the beginning of September, all G20 member economies except China agreed to take action against “non-market” economic policies and trade distortions that cause over-reliance on exports.
The US-led effort comes as China’s turbocharged exports have propped up its economic growth despite weak domestic demand while flooding Europe, Latin America and other regions with cheap goods, pressuring domestic industries. The United States has already imposed steep tariffs on Chinese steel and has banned Chinese vehicle imports on national security data-collection grounds.
Some foreign trade ministers participating in the G20 meeting in Milwaukee expressed enthusiasm for taking action against Chinese steel imports.
“We see that China is really heavily subsidizing its production and export of steel products,” said Andrzej Domanski, Poland’s finance and economy minister. “This is a problem for many, many countries in the European Union, for Poland as well. And, of course, this is one of the issues that we want to raise here in the United States.”
American steel industry representatives at the Milwaukee meeting also pushed for coordinated action on excess capacity.
Kevin Dempsey, president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, an industry trade group, said that he addressed the steel forum on the need to take stronger action to combat circumvention of US tariffs through third countries.
He said his message to ministers was “they should do something. The global overcapacity problem is still getting worse.”
(Reporting by David Lawder’ editing by Michelle Nichols and Sanjeev Miglani)
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