Mr Trump, in his tweet on 2nd December, blamed Brazil and Argentina for devaluation and argued that it is affecting the US farmers. Therefore, he restored the tariffs on all steel & aluminium imports to the US from both countries.
The decision is going to hurt the American steelmaking industry itself, which particularly needs steel slab currently exported by Brazil. In the past, Brazilian steel producers avoided the 25% US tariffs under section 232 by accepting a hard quota system proposed by the US Department of Commerce in May 2018.
Under the deal, Brazil was allowed to export up to 3.5 million tonnes of semi-finished steel (mainly expected to be slab) and around 600k tonnes of finished steel to the US.
Bacote Dalila
It is hard to say when the tariffs would be removed again. As it is clearly going to hurt the US Steel industry. Importers should soon start complaining.
However, it will help some major local steel producers who have been complaining about low steel prices. Certainly, prices are going to shoot up now.
This should help the steel industry for some time. That said the industry has been on the see-saw between locals and importers since the tariffs imposed. Now, this is local producers turn to rise.
Jorg Schmid
Yes, going to hurt the US industry but so Brazilan steel companies. The Brazil Steel Institute also issued a statement. Brazil has now the right to retaliate. But I think they would be back to the negotiation table soon.
Jorg Schmid
As I said, previously, they need to go back to the negotiations table.
It is just reported in local Brazilian media that Trump confirmed in a call with Jair Bolsonaro to not impose the duties.
The tariff was not ratified from the White House as it was just a tweet to put more pressure on Brazil.
It seems that it was a give and take kind of deal. So, now some relief for Brazilian steel producers for the time being.