Final Thoughts

Steel Market Update has been proactively writing about our expectations for Executive Orders and their impact on foreign steel imports. It is clear that the steel lobby has the ear of the president and this has to be quite frustrating to the same companies he is trying to convince to come back to the United States with their manufacturing jobs.

In today’s earnings call with Mark Millet of Steel Dynamics he admitted that the spread between Chinese hot rolled pricing and U.S. prices is $270 per ton. China is $270 per ton below pricing here in the U.S. I am not so sure that is a correct number. So, I looked at what one of my sources gave me earlier this week for HRC going to Africa and the Middle East at $395 per metric ton, FOB China ($359 net ton). When you take freight into consideration the spread between U.S. and China pricing is pretty close to $270 per ton…