U.S. steel industries line up against ThyssenKrupp

U.S.A./Steel industry lines up against ThyssenKrupp’s foreign trade zone request. German steel giant ThyssenKrupp last year asked the U.S. government to designate its $4.65 billion Calvert, Ala., steel mill now under construction a foreign trade zone. U.S. steel manufacturers and associations including AK Steel Corp., the Steel Manufacturers Association, the Specialty Steel Industry of North America and related unions filed objections in December, according to the Mobile Press Register. The Foreign Trade Zones Board has now scheduled a hearing for September 10. No domestic mills are located in foreign trade zones, according to the newspaper. Foreign trade zone status could allow TK to save as much as $5 million a year on import duties on raw materials used to make stainless steel. Critics say that foreign trade status would give ThyssenKrupp an unfair competitive advantage over a suffering domestic industry, according to the newspaper. Domestic capacity usage fell to near 50 percent by some measures during the worst of the crisis. Some in the industry say that the capacity ThyssenKrupp is adding at Calvert is bound to lead to overproduction, foreign trade zone status aside. In response, TK attorney Kristine Price wrote that substituting domestic production for imported products will benefit the U.S., the newspaper said. TK already imports 11 percent of the breakbulk stainless steel sold in the U.S., she wrote; when the mill opens, that stainless steel will be produced domestically. TK plans to import feedstock slabs from its Brazil slab mill through the Port of Mobile, where a new steel terminal is already under construction.