Steel Industry Applauds Passage of Trade Enforcement Law

The U.S. steel industry celebrated last week when President Obama signed into law the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, which includes the ENFORCE Act.

Obama spoke about the issue last week at the National Governors Association gathering when he responded to a question about the administration’s work to address China’s dumping of coal and steel.

“Well, first of all, the good news is we’ve been more aggressive than previous administrations when it comes to bringing enforcement actions,” he said. “And this is an area where even the steelworkers, as much as they object to TPP, would acknowledge we’ve done a lot on this front.”

The other bit of good news, Obama said, is that a companion bill to trade promotion authority that recently passed the House and the Senate, and he will sign soon, offers “additional tools for enforcement—more resources, more personnel, allows us to take more aggressive actions.”

Obama said it is not a “secret that China in the past has not always operated fairly.”

He emphasized that the enforcement actions should not be confused with closing off trade: “What is possible is making sure that everybody is playing on a level playing field and that people are operating fairly.”

Obama said China is “in a process where they’re trying to transition their economic model. They recognize that they can’t forever sustain an export-driven growth model. But it’s going to take some time, and it’s tempting for them to solve short-term problems by just dumping a bunch of state-subsidized goods into the U.S. market.”

Thomas J. Gibson, president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute, which has long championed the ENFORCE Act, said the measure becoming law is a “great day for the steel industry and all those who want to reign in tariff evasion and trade schemes at our borders.”

Source: Trade Cases S