The U.S. government took the whole world by storm on 9 Mar’18 when the country’s president Mr. Donald Trump officially signed the document announcing import tariffs on country’s steel and aluminium imports.
While all the countries across the globe are covered under this trade restriction, Mexico, Canada, and Australia has been exempted from the same. However, the Trump government has held out the possibility of excluding other US allies by signalling that the tariff policy was open to more exemptions.
Now if we analyse the impact of U.S. import tariffs on Egypt, the country exported about 170,000 tonnes of steel to U.S. in 2017 and with the import restrictions in place, the Egyptian steel industry will now have to bear the brunt.
According to industry reports, currently only two Egyptian companies, Ezz Steel and Kandil Steel exports steel to the U.S. However, the figure was expected to increase as Egypt has good production capacities and several Egyptian steel companies have potential regarding possible steel exports to the US, said Hassan Al-Marakby, deputy head of the Metallurgical Industries Chamber (MIC) at the Federation of Egyptian Industries.
Egypt’s steel exports did not represent more than 6% of Egypt’s total exports, and that the U.S. share stands less than 3% of the total exports. Egypt’s total trade value with the US stood at USD 5.5 billion in 2017, compared to USD 4.7 billion in 2016, an increase of 13%.
The percentage contribution of Egypt in U.S. steel imports do not exceed 0.5%. According to the figures from General Organisation for Import and Export Control, Egypt’s steel exports to the US were worth some USD 102 million last year.
Subsequently attempts are being made by the Egypt to get itself exempted from the fees imposed by President Donald Trump on imports of steel.
It is being reported that the country is optimistic about the possibility of exempting Egypt from the new tariffs, even though Egypt was included on a list of 12 countries drawn up by the US Department of Commerce recommending that Trump impose at least 53 per cent tariffs on their steel imports.
Other countries on the list include Brazil, China, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.
The recommendation on tariffs came as part of a list of remedies drawn up by the US Department of Commerce to address the problem of steel imports.
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