BlueScope says it will await confirmation from US President Donald Trump’s administration before it celebrates – or comments on – a planned American steel import tariff exemption.
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Australian steel and aluminium are set to be exempt from the harsh import tariffs after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann lobbied Mr Trump and other officials on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg.
Building on legwork already done by Trade Minister Steven Ciobo, BlueScope Steel and Rio Tinto, Mr Turnbull and Senator Cormann argued for exemptions for Australia from any and all trade sanctions Mr Trump may impose, steel and aluminium included.
They argued in a private meeting with US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Saturday that ongoing overproduction and dumping by China were the cause of Mr Trump's concerns.
Australia was a strong ally of the US, its steel and aluminium a relatively small source of imports, and should therefore be spared.
Mr Turnbull and Senator Cormann made the case again early Sunday Australian time in another meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Mnuchin and US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and then in a separate meeting between Senator Cormann and White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn.
The men left Hamburg “confident Mr Mnuchin and Mr Trump understood the situation”, a source said.
“On the back of the conversation, they were happy that Australia is going to be OK.”
BlueScope exports between 200,000 tonnes and 300,000 tonnes of hot rolled coil to the US annually, a fraction of the 2.6 million tonne production capacity of the Port Kembla blast furnace.
Only about 60,000 of those US export tonnes are sold to plants operated by rivals.
The rest go to BlueScope-owned businesses.
BlueScope has been vocal about the inadequacy of Australia’s protections against dumping in the midst of a flood of cheap Chinese steel exports.
Chief executive Paul O’Malley has previously told the Mercury China alone exported 20 times as much as BlueScope’s three steelmaking sites combined.
A BlueScope spokesman said if reports of the US import tariffs exemption were accurate, the company would “welcome the news”.
– additional reporting by Andrew Pearson and Tim Binsted.