For immediate release Contact: Thomas A. Danjczek
The 201 Minimill Coalition
Responds to the Section 201 Decision of the
Washington, DC (October 22, 2001) The 201 Minimill Coalition* is extremely gratified that the ITC has made
an affirmative determination of injury due to imports of almost all carbon flat
steel products and most of the carbon long product categories, which have
adversely affected domestic producers of these products. The ITC examined
immense amounts of information before making this finding. The evidence has obviously borne out what the
industry has been saying for some time – imports into the
The Coalition regrets that the Commission decision did not
find injury from imports of semi-finished carbon long products, heavy
structural shapes, sheet piling, and rails.
It will require continuing vigilance to ensure that those products not
covered by the finding do not become opportunities for increasing damage from
imports.
As the Commission moves to the remedy phase of its
investigation, we urge Commissioners to recommend a comprehensive remedy of
sufficient duration to return the domestic steel industry to a healthy
condition, after many years of continuing damage from imported steel.
The 201 Minimill Coalition and
other members of the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA)** wish to emphasize that they continue to
vigorously oppose the provision of relief in the form of government subsidies
to individual domestic steel companies.
Such relief would be counterproductive to fair trade in steel products and
the need to eliminate uneconomic capacity in the world steel sector. The SMA believes strongly that markets
involved in fair trade, not the Government, should determine steel industry
winners and losers.
The Coalition and the SMA will continue to work in
cooperation with the Commission and the Bush Administration to ensure the
development of a remedy which will return the domestic steel industry to
economic viability.
* The 201 Minimill Coalition consists of 21 electric furnace steel companies accounting for about one third of US steel shipments. They have filed a request for relief from excessive imports with the US International Trade Commission under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1984.
** The Steel Manufacturers Association is the
primary trade association for scrap based electric arc furnace steelmakers,
known as minimills and account for over half of the
steel produced in the