When Trump launched the Section 232 steel probe in April, he said it had “nothing to do with China“.
The U.S. president joined 19 of his counterparts at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, Friday, with issues on the table ranging from trade to climate change.
The EU is not a large importer of steel from the USA, so the measure focuses more on goods that the EU brings in from the U.S., according to the report.
The G 20 Summit was a great success for the U.S. – Explained that the U.S. must fix the many bad trade deals it has made. Germany also has a large steel industry and officials there have been particularly concerned about what a unilateral move to impose restrictions on steel imports to the United States might mean.
While China is the central focus of the Trump administration’s Section 232 investigations of steel and aluminum imports, other nations are interested in the investigations’ results. Trump announced Friday that had called on South Korea to “stop enabling the export of dumped steel”. They are hoping to galvanize other countries at the G-20 to work together to confront China over its government support for the domestic steel industry, with the idea that joint pressure could be more effective and remove the possibility that the United States has to move alone.
“There is no doubt that this entire line of trade remedy actions regarding national security matters is going to be an issue”, said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told Reuters it would be concerning to see countries making national security demands within the WTO’s dispute settlement system, the global trade court for the its 164 members.
“That hurts us, but it also hurts the Americans”, he added.
He warned however, that a broad US claim to national security would put global trade on a slippery slope. They would not comment on a report made by the Financial Times that said the European Union could hit US imports of orange juice and bourbon. Indeed, analysts have warned that tariffs could drive up steel prices for US manufacturers.
During his four-day trip, Trump would travel to Poland and then to Germany to attend the G-20 Summit which among others is being attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The G-20 will “continue to fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognize the rule of legitimate trade defense instruments in this regard”.
While the policy recommendations of those probes haven’t been announced, some US businesses are feeling pretty good about what those protectionist policies might do for them. “I think that there are some concerns about the systemic implications about going down that route for the worldwide trading system”.