If the US government decides to move forward with a Section 201 safeguard blanket without including steel pipe and tube products it would likely kill the remaining domestic tubular industry, Robert Mandel, vice chairman of The Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports trade association, said Thursday.
During hearings with the Congressional Steel Caucus, US Department of Commerce and US Trade Representative in Washington this week, Section 201 has come up repeatedly as a potential solution to remedy import issues impacting the domestic steel industry.
Section 201, which is part of the Trade Act of 1974, permits the US president to grant temporary but comprehensive import relief.
"While pipe and tube is not itself asking for a 201 investigation, we believe it is imperative that pipe and tube products be included in any potential steel 201 investigation, said Madel, who also serves as president of New York-based Welded Tube USA.
"If a steel 201 were to only include flat-rolled products and ignore pipe and tube we would certainly see the end of the domestic pipe and tube industry as we know it today," he said.
If flat rolled products are shut out of the US market they would simply go to third countries, like South Korea and Turkey, and would in turn be converted into pipe and tube and exported to the US, Mandel said.
"The result would be devastating to the US steel pipe and tube industry," he said.
