The proposal by the Trump Administration to levy a steep tariff on steel imports will encourage steel-surplus nation to divert their exports to “vibrant consumption centres like India and distort domestic markets considerably,'' asserted the Indian Steel Association (ISA).
The association said that the American move to club India, a steel non-mature country, with other steel surplus nations “is not appropriate''.
In a statement, ISA, the representative body of Indian steel-makers, said that “the proposal by the U.S. to include India among several others is not desirable as a policy measure''. The U.S. proposal would dent the growth prospects of a developing nation like India whose production and consumption were inward-looking, it added.
D. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Secretary-General of ISA, felt that a “nuanced distinction is imperative prior to imposition of across-the-board tariffs on the basis of a country's steel production motives''.
The proposal, if implemented, would result in major shifts in existing global trade flows of steel and steel products, ISA said.
“Though India is the third largest producer of steel and produces 12 per cent of the world's non-Chinese production of steel, it has only a 2.7 per cent share in the U.S. imports,'' the association said.
ISA also pointed to the fact that there were a total of 16 trade remedies in place in the U.S. against Indian steel companies. This included 10 anti-dumping and 6 countervailing duties. All these had made it nearly impossible to export to the U.S., the association said.
