AISI Applauds Introduction Of House Bill To Address Unfair Trade

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) today applauded the introduction of the “Eliminating Global Market Distortions to Protect American Jobs Act of 2021,” bipartisan legislation by Reps. Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Bill Johnson (R-OH), which will strengthen U.S. trade remedy laws to crack down on trade cheating and enhance the tools available to combat repeat offenders of the U.S. trade remedy laws. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rob Portman (R-OH) in April introduced similar companion legislation in the Senate, which now has nine additional bipartisan cosponsors.

“This legislation will strengthen the effectiveness of the U.S. trade laws and will give American workers the confidence that their government has every potential tool available to fight for a level playing field against foreign competitors that seek to cheat the system,” said Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of AISI. “The domestic steel industry appreciates the leadership of Representatives Sewell and Johnson in introducing this critical legislation, which is a companion piece to the bipartisan measure introduced earlier this year by Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman. We urge both Republicans and Democrats to support this crucial bill.”

Dempsey continued, “American steelmakers have repeatedly won relief against unfair trade practices under the U.S. trade laws ─ often at great expense ─ only to face new surges of steel imports of the same products from other countries not subject to the original antidumping or countervailing duty orders. This bill creates a new process for successive investigations to provide for more timely relief against these subsequent surges than under the current system.”

Dempsey also applauded the bill’s provisions to address “cross-border subsidization,” where foreign governments subsidize industries not only in their own countries but in other countries as well. This is exemplified by recent action taken by China to subsidize its steelmakers to build new export-oriented steelmaking facilities in other Asian countries, such as Indonesia, through the Belt and Road Initiative.