Steel workers rep says U.S. duties are ‘slap in the face’

Regina steelworkers are feeling uncertain after the U.S. announced Tuesday it’s posing anti-dumping duties on large diameter pipe.

The strong, hollow tubes are mainly used underground for the transportation of water and gas.

The U.S. is putting tariffs on them to counteract an act called dumping–when a company exports a product at an unfair price less than what they would sell it for in their home country, intending to rule out competition.

Canada is one of the six countries affected along with China, Korea, India, Greece and Turkey.

But Regina’s United Steelworkers Local 5890 President, Mike Day, said Evraz Steel hasn’t been dumping on the States.

“Canada and the U.S. have always been equal trade partners, especially when it comes to steel, and now I’m not sure what the Trump regime is going for here,” Day said. “It makes it more of a slap in the face than anything.”

These anti-dumping duties are the newest battle in the trade war between Canada and the U.S.

Earlier this year, the U.S. put a 25 per cent tariff on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum.

Now the States receives an immediate 24.38 per cent cash deposit on top of those tariffs as part of the anti-dumping duties.

When the U.S. put the original tariffs in place, Day said the steel industry struggled.

“There was a lot of concern with our customers like how our orders were going to get down to the United States and there was a lot of pipe that was being held north of the border in different locations…that created a lot of uncertainty here, whether or not we were running out of room to stockpile the pipe for this order in Regina because there was nowhere else really to hold it,” he said.

“We don’t know where it would have landed on a time frame for a shutdown or something like that,” he added. “We were getting pretty close.”

Just when things started moving again, Day said Regina, especially, will be struck by the additional duties.

“We’re the number one producer of large diameter pipe in North America and really we’re the only one in Canada that does what we do,” he said. “There’s a lot of questions on the floor and there’s a lot of people worried about how this is going to work moving forward.”

He said he’s unsure if steelworkers could lose their jobs because of the increasing tariffs.

Evraz Steel hasn’t responded since 980 CJME reached out for a comment.