The investigations, launched under the Section 301 trade regulations, will determine whether “those acts, policies and practices are unreasonable or discriminatory, and burden or restrict US commerce,” the USTR said.
The economies subject to these probes are China, the EU, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan and India.
The USTR said that the sectors affected would include aluminium, automobiles, batteries, machinery, non-ferrous metals, semiconductors and steel.
According to estimates by the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity (GFSEC), quoted by the USTR, the world’s total steel excess capacity was expected to increase to 721 million tonnes per year by 2027.
“The Trump administration’s reindustrialization efforts continue to face significant challenges due to foreign economies’ structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors,” USTR ambassador Jamieson Greer said. “This overproduction displaces existing US domestic production, or prevents investment and expansion in US manufacturing production that otherwise would have been brought online.”
The investigations could result in the imposition of additional tariffs or other measures against imports from some or all of the trading partners affected, according to a report by international trade law firm Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg.
But the move was supported by steel market participants, citing long-standing issues of global overcapacity.
“Overcapacity is a serious problem. In some cases, such as Chinese autos and steel, it has wrecked economies and industries as well as cost jobs in America,” Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, said on March 12.
“For too long, global overcapacity has plagued a broad array of manufacturing sectors, including steel, aluminium and many others,” Roxanne Brown, international president of the United Steelworkers (USW) trade union, said on the same day. “We must push back against China and other ‘bad actors’ as they swamp world markets with their excess capacity and undermine our domestic industries.”
Public comments on the excess-capacity probe will be accepted until April 15, and a public hearing will be held around May 5 in Washington DC.
The initiation of the investigations came just over a week after US President Donald Trump unveiled his administration’s trade policy agenda.
According to a USTR report on March 2, Trump’s “America First Trade Policy” has decreased the country’s trade deficit in goods and has boosted domestic production.
