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On August 5, US sheet producers saw the culmination of many months of work as the US Department of Commerce released its final determinations of countervailing and anti-dumping duties against hot-rolled coil (HRC) imports, the last of the three major unfair trade cases on sheet steel.

The duties in the other two cases, on imports of corrosion-resistant sheet (coated sheet) and cold-rolled coil (CRC), were finalized earlier in the summer. However, they were not overnight decisions and were also years in the making, from evidence gathering, legal consultations, filings, hearings and deliberations. This road to recovery for US sheet producers has been long and arduous, spanning the last two and half years, and it’s not over yet.

In fact, the US International Trade Commission (ITC), which has already sanctioned most of the CRC and coated sheet duties with affirmative injury rulings, must make final determinations in the HRC case, due September 19 in the dumping portion of the case and October 18 in the subsidy cases against exporters in two countries.

Looking back at a presentation given at the S&P Global Platts Steel Forum in New York City in 2014, one of the slides addressed “potential” trade case action by US sheet mills. There had been nothing filed yet for any flat-rolled products at the time but US market participants had already been discussing it for months. The ongoing sentiment in the market from anyone who wasn’t a producer was, “I will believe a trade case when I see one,” as rumored filing dates came and went without action by the mills.

The issue shifted from market chatter of specific possible high-volume targets, such as India for its exports of light-gauge corrosion resistant material, to targeting a wide range of countries across the spectrum of sheet products. It wasn’t until almost a year later that US producers filed their first petition to the ITC and US Department of Commerce — against coated sheet imports from five countries, on June 3, 2015. A petition against CRC imports from seven countries was filed almost two months later, on July 28, and following on its heels was an August 11 filing against imports of HRC from seven countries — the case for which Commerce recently set final duty margins.

Leading up to the trade case filings US mills ...