During the election the now President-elect Donald Trump made much of “making America great again” and bringing manufacturing back to America. He singled out steel in particular as a sector that had been destroyed by imports, especially from China, saying during the televised presidential debates that China was dumping steel and “killing our workers.” In January this year Trump even suggested that he would put a 45% tariff on Chinese imports in part to rescue US manufacturing.

In reality Chinese exports of steel to the US have long been in decline – mainly due to the numerous countervailing duties and  anti-dumping tariffs which the US applies to Chinese finished steel products. This can be seen in the chart below which shows Chinese exports of finished steel products to the US and the rest of the world. In 2015 Chinese exports to the US were only 2.4 million mt, down 29% on the previous year, accounting for just 2% of China’s total exports of 112 million mt.

However, when we look at Chinese exports of not only finished steel but also items manufactured from steel and aluminum like pipes, tubes, sheet piling, tanks, drums, fabricated sections, nails, cables and even barbed wire, the picture is somewhat different.

We have used Harmonized System (HS) trade data that classifies traded products into internationally standardized groups to analyze China’s trade with the US. The chart below shows China’s exports of three groups of metal products to the US; iron and steel (HS code 72) – primarily finished steel like HRC and bar; products manufactured from iron and steel like drums, nails and wire (HS code 73); and also aluminum and products manufactured from aluminums (HS code 76).

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