Act quickly to stop unfair dumping of Korean steel

Six decades ago, the United States valiantly came to the defense of South Korea in a war against Communist expansionism, costing this country more than 33,000 lives.

Sixty-four years after the end of that conflict, South Korea itself is waging war against America, costing the U.S. thousands of jobs. Its brutal economic attack has hit the Mahoning and Shenango valleys particularly hard.

Today’s conflict stems in part from the Republic of Korea’s production of oil country tubular goods (OCTGs), which comprise a variety of steel pipes for the U.S. oil and gas drilling industry.

It is selling these products far below production costs, a practice known commonly as dumping. And let there be no doubt that the U.S. has become a prime dumping ground.

As a result, our nation has reached a record trade deficit of $26.5 billion with South Korea, a 60 percent increase over the past five years. That’s a far cry from the “jump-start” to the U.S. economy promised in a so-called fair-trade agreement with South Korea signed in 2012.

As of last year, the trade deal had cost at least 106,000 American jobs, mostly in OCTGs, according to conservative estimates.

In Greater Youngstown, primary job producers in the OCTG manufacturing sector include Vallourec in Youngstown, Wheatland Tube in Warren and TMK IPSCO in Brookfield. Hundreds of workers making up that key manufacturing sector of the Valley’s economy remain at risk.

In recent months, the trade crisis has taken a definitive turn for the worst. Concerted action, therefore, is needed to reverse course, and it’s needed now.

Fortunately, Ohio’s two U.S. senators – Republican Rob Portman of Cincinnati and Democrat Sherrod Brown of Cleveland – have come to bat for the OCTG industry and its workers. Both fired off a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross last week urging him and others in the administration of President Donald J. Trump to get tough against South Korea.

GREEN LIGHT FOR DUMPING

After a preliminary review of the OCTG complaint against Korea was completed last summer with no punitive measures taken, Korea immediately expedited its dumping of the product.

According to Sens. Portman and Brown, in September 2016, 12,689 metric tons of Korean OCTG imports entered the United States. The next month, after the preliminary review was released, that figure quadrupled to 50,837 metric tons. During the first two months of this year, import volumes soared again to approximately 80,000 metric tons monthly.

Continued increases triggered by unfair trade will further jeopardize American production of OCTGs and the tens of thousands of jobs it supports.

That’s why the bipartisan plea from Portman and Brown should get a receptive ear at Commerce. After all, Secretary Ross himself has been a staunch critic of steel dumping.

“A healthy steel industry is critical to our economy and manufacturing base, yet our steel industry today is under assault from foreign producers that dump and subsidize their exports,” Ross said last week after his department approved duties of up to 148 percent on steel cut-to-length plates from seven countries found guilty of selling the product far below market value.

He and others at Commerce should apply that same logic when issuing its final ruling on Korean OCTG imports.

Clearly, there’s no time to waste. The flood of Korean steel-tube piping comes at the same time that the U.S. oil and gas drilling industry is experiencing an upturn after several years of stagnation.

As state Sen. Sean O’Brien of Bazetta, D-32nd, told the Energy In Depth website earlier this year, “We’re starting to see significant economic change in the Valley due largely to oil and gas development here in Ohio. This is a positive sign for the entire region. There’s no question energy development in Ohio is off to a great start this year. For my district, the state of Ohio and the country, the return of natural-gas exploration and the ancillary industries that support it are critical to bringing back middle-class jobs.”

Toward ensuring those jobs can proliferate and to guard against unfair contraction in the U.S. market, Commerce should set its sights squarely on torpedoing the overarching threat from South Korea.

Then it, along with leadership from President Donald Trump, himself a fierce fair-trade advocate, should work to ensure the nation and our region no longer stand idly by as patsies of patently unfair trade policies from any corner of the globe.