CoverStory
Okay, not really. Rebar only accounted for about 4 percent of the US’ total steel imports in 2013, according to government data, and even if the worst-case outcome of the current trade case against Turkey and Mexico comes to pass, trading offices and ports will still be as full and busy as ever, regardless of what some doomsayers are predicting. In fact, there are several very different pictures developing for the 2014 rebar import market: the rosy, unencumbered market dominance of US domestic mills; the bleak, global-market impacting dread of US-based traders; and the cool, “this too shall pass” shrug from foreign mills. e final determination of the US Department of Commerce (DOC) and International Trade Commission (ITC) in the antidumping and countervailing duty case against Turkey and Mexico (including the filing of “critical circumstances” petitions) will be either the best or worst thing to happen to the US rebar market, but regardless of who wins, many in the industry are more worried about the potential for unintended consequences.
From Rumor to Preliminary Ruling Import sources started to raise US mills’ hackles as far back as 2011, the first year that the economic recovery started to become evident. After 183,000 metric tons of rebar arrived into the US in the first quarter, US rebar mills scrambled to offer “foreign fighter” deals and other incentives to retain their position in an already-weak market. US-based distributors told SteelOrbis at the time that mills hoped the Q1 2011 import trend was a fluke, because if the trend continued throughout the year, or became a recurring event, “something would have to be done.”
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Imports more or less leveled out for the remainder of the year, but when Q1 2012 rolled around, so did another flood of imports—this time, with much more force. January 2012 saw around 124,000 metric tons of imported rebar arrive into the US, a level not seen since well before the economic crisis. When import levels failed to dip signficantly in the following months, rumors ran rampant that an antidumping (AD) petition filing was right around the corner. However, as with the previous year, imports leveled out for the remainder of the year (aside from a November spike), which took the wind out of US mills’ sails—one of the determining factors before filing an AD petition is a longstanding pattern of significant import tonnages, extremely low prices, or both. While the import flood of Q1 2013 was not as strong as 2012 (just over 321,000 metric tons arrived in the first three months), it offered another, almost damning contrast—despite a few dips, the flood more or less sustained further on into the year, with 129,000 metric tons arriving in May, 91,124 metric tons in June, and 110,889 metric tons in September. Finally, US mills had the “pattern” they needed to file a worthwhile petition against Turkey and Mexico. On September 26, the US DOC formally
Volume 7; Issue 1
initiated investigations into Turkish and Mexican rebar, estimating dumping margins of 48.82-66.70 percent for Mexico and 35.01-36.99 percent for Turkey. e ITC scheduled a vote for its preliminary injury investigation for October 18, but when the US government shut down in October over budgetary squabbles, the ruling was delayed for an indeterminate amount of time. US mills and traders weren’t left on the edge of their seats for long—the ITC ruled on November 1 that there was a “reasonable indication that the US steel industry is materially injured by reason of imports of steel concrete reinforcing bar from Mexico and Turkey that are allegedly sold in the United States at less than fair value and allegedly subsidized by the government of Turkey.” As such, the affirmative determination kicked the next decision back to the DOC, which would continue its investigations. Before further rulings, however, anonymous sources confirmed that US rebar mills filed a “critical circumstances” allegation in early December in the ongoing AD/CVD investigation of rebar from Turkey. e allegation, which claims that imports increased after the initial filing of the AD/CVD petition (compared to a period of time before the initial filing), required a documentable increase threshold of 15 percent or more by the
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