Recently President Trump tweeted that tariffs on steel made U.S. steel industry totally revived. In March 2018, Trump signed executive orders imposing a 25% tariff on imported steel and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum products under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Let’s take a look on numbers how the U.S. industry actually revived or not.
Tariffs on the “dumping” of Steel in the United States have totally revived our Steel Industry. New and expanded plants are happening all over the U.S. We have not only saved this important industry, but created many jobs. Also, billions paid to our treasury. A BIG WIN FOR U.S.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 2019年1月28日
Here is employment on the steel industry. As you can see, since last year October, employment has been drastically increasing.
| Steel, Iron, Ferroalloy Industry Employment 2018 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov |
| 86.5 | 86.9 | 86.2 | 86.8 | 86.4 | 87.1 | 86.1 | 86.1 | 86.6 | 86.2 | 87.7 |
Below shows the steel production index. Index number in November and December surpassed “100” which indicates the U.S. steel industry is back to the year of 2012 level.
| Steel Production Index 2018 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 92.229 | 95.341 | 97.727 | 95.456 | 95.212 | 93.511 | 94.025 | 97.168 | 99.207 | 102.93 | 103.284 |
Now let’s look at the U.S. steel imports statistics. Steel imports have been declining after the tariffs and December’s imports have become the lowest level in the year.
| U.S. Steel Imports 2018 | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 2.6 | 2.2 | 3 | 3.4 | 2.8 | 2.3 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2 | 3 | 2.4 | 1.9 |
Here is the share of steel production in the world now. While China is dominating the world production share, the U.S. is the 5th largest steel production country.
| Shares of World Crude Steel Production Sep 2018 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chia | EU | Japan | India | U.S. | Russia | S. Korea | Other |
| 53.4 | 9 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 4.8 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 13.9 |
source: U.S. Department of Commerce
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