Fed up with the flood of underpriced foreign steel, the nation's steel executives, steelworkers and politicians unloaded on the U.S. International Trade Commission Tuesday, urging it to punish countries for illegal dumping tactics.
Their testimonies came on the heels of Friday's decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce that found that South Korea, and eight other nations were guilty of either importing steel into the United States that was below cost or of accepting large subsidies from their governments. Both practices threaten U.S. steel companies and have already caused financial losses and layoffs in the industry, steel executives told the commission Tuesday.
"Our employees have suffered as a result of this surge of unfairly traded products," U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi told commission members Tuesday. He noted that United Steelworkers across the nation have felt the sting. The violating nations have inflicted "significant material harm upon our domestic steel industry."
The steel imports in question are called Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) and are a specialty tubular steel that is in big demand in the U.S. oil and fracking industry. The Commerce Department found that many of these imports were underpriced anywhere from 6 percent to 36 percent below cost, depending on the nation.
While South Korea was the United States' largest importer of illegal steel at $812 million, the Commerce Department found that other trade violating nations included India at $175 million, Vietnam at $110 million, Turkey at $107 million, Ukraine at $87 million, Taiwan at $79 million, Saudi Arabia at $71 million, the Philippines at $55 million and Thailand at $37 million.
Armed with this information, The International Trade Commission will now decide how much, if any, each nation will pay in anti-dumping fines. ITC will make its final determination Aug. 25, but in the meantime, it is gathering its own information about the harm suffered by U.S. iron and steel firms and workers.
The controversy has been brewing for some time. Rallies and protests have erupted across the country. And more than 160 members of Congress also called for action from the U.S. government.
U.S. Steel, which owns KeeTac and MinnTac on Minnesota's Iron Range, and seven other steel companies filed formal complaints months ago with the U.S. government about steel dumping nations and called for sanctions.
Three weeks ago, hundreds of taconite miners and factory workers from the Iron Range rallied in Virginia and Minnesota with thousands of steel workers, factory owners, union officials, manufacturers and politicians who urged the U.S. government to take action. Steel dumping cost the entire U.S. industry a $1.2 billion loss last year and was already causing some steel mills in Pennsylvania and Ohio to lay off workers, protestors complained.
In testifying before the ITC Tuesday, U.S. Senator Amy Klobucharsaid she wanted the ITC to take action so that jobs would not be lost on Minnesota's Iron Range, a fragile economic region in the Northeastern corner of the state that has been hurt by cheap imports in the past as well as the normal boom and bust cycles of the industry.
"Unfortunately, unfair trading practices by foreign companies are compromising our businesses' ability to compete and putting steelworker jobs in jeopardy. Now that the [Commerce} investigation has fond clear evidence of Korean companies dumping into the U.S., the ITC needs to impose penalties," Klobuchar said.
She told commission members that her grandfather used to work in iron ore mines 1,500 feet below ground. "I don't think my grandpa...ever thought of dumping practices or South Korean OCTG products coming in. He didn't think about that. He just wanted to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. The miners of today deserve that same treatment."