Trump Targets Steel Trade, but China Will Be Tough to Contain -
By KEITH BRADSHERAPRIL 20, 2017
HANGZHOU, China — China’s vast steel industry is a major target of President Trump.
“Steel is the food for China’s industry,” said Wang Guoqing, the research director at
the Lange Steel Information Research Center, a Chinese industry group in Beijing.
China in early 2016 committed to closing steel mills representing 100 million to 150
million tons of capacity over five years, or roughly a tenth of its capacity then.
China closed 65 million tons of capacity last year
and plans to close another 50 million tons this year, according to a speech in early March by Premier Li Keqiang.
Advocates of a more confrontational American trade policy fail to understand this, said Li Xinchuang,
the dean of the China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, a government agency.
In addition to the $34 million it received to close the Hangzhou plant, Hangzhou Iron
and Steel in 2015 received nearly $106 million in subsidies and cheap government loans to help cover overall costs of upgrading its plants.
