Fastmarkets outlines five key takeaways from SteelOrbis' 11th Annual Rebar and Wire Rod Conference that was held in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 3.
Panelists included Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America; Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA); and Vince Pappas, president of Stone Steel Corporation. Steel imports currently subject to 232According to Bell, only a little over a quarter of steel imports are covered by the Section 232 tariffs. "When you look at the fact that Mexico and Canada got excluded because of the [United States-Mexico-Canada agreement], when you look at the fact that Brazil, Argentina and South Korea were under quotas, and then when you look at this cluster called the exclusions and exemptions process and the amount of steel that got excluded because of that, estimates now are that only about 25 to 30 percent of imports are even covered by 232," Bell said. He added that SMA partnered with Wiley Rein LLP, a Washington, D.C.-based trade law firm, to evaluate what percentage of...