‘Throw out the Cleveland Cliffs petition’, says the CMI

The basis for an anti-dumping petition by US steelmaker Cleveland Cliffs has been repudiated by the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) as “completely unfounded”.

The CMI has urged the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to reject a “finding of injury” to Cleveland Cliffs due to imported tin mill products.

Allegations of harm to Cleveland Cliffs from imported tin mill products were “self-inflicted” said the CMI. The body that represents the interests of canmakers and their suppliers in North America added that there was no basis for the ITC to support the claims by Cleveland Cliffs, based on imports of tin mill products that it has not made, nor will make.

On 5 January, the Department of Commerce issued its final determinations on anti-dumping duties, but the CMI said this was “magnitudes lower” than what Cleveland Cliffs had demanded.

The CMI pointed out that Cleveland Cliffs doesn’t make tinplate suitable for high-speed D&I can manufacturing, stating that the company produces tinplate for only one segment of the market – three-piece cans – which is “only about 34% of total US steel can production”; and that in 2022 Cleveland Cliffs only supplied “64% of the volumes requested by manufacturers of steel cans, and delivered only 15% of that volume on time”.

The CMI further stated that senior executives at the company had “admitted” to investing just US$16 million a year in tin mill production, rather than the at least $1 billion that would be needed to “meet global tin mill product production standards”.

This showed, according to the CMI, a “lack of commitment to meeting canmakers’ needs for reliable, high-quality supply across the full range of tin mill product specifications” on the part of Cleveland Cliffs.

Furthermore, the CMI expressed concern over the duties imposed on tinplate from Germany and Canada, saying that it disagreed that these two countries were “selling at unfairly low prices in the United States”, pointing out that the US had “the highest tin mill product prices in the world”.

The CMI said the petition was “an abuse of US trade laws”, and in its post-hearing brief on 12 January before the ITC, legal counsel for the CMI importers coalition stated: “The domestic industry could not, and still cannot, supply key product types required by can manufacturers, as repeatedly confirmed at the Hearing. These include, among various others, wide coil D&I, TMP for easy open (EZO) ends and easy peel (EZP) ends, and laminated tin free steel – specifications for which demand has been increasing over the period of investigation.”

The counsel added: “[Cleveland Cliffs] acknowledged that some purchasers use material that is ‘wider than what we normally offer’, but claimed that canmakers should be able to use wide and narrow products interchangeably on their can production lines. This claim is false.”

The CMI noted the antidumping duties of 122.52% and countervailing duties of 331.88% to 649.98% on tinplate from China, but highlighted that these imports were less than 10% of imported tin mill products during the period of investigation. However, it added: “CMI believes that Commerce’s high antidumping and countervailing duties on imports from China reflect the existence of unfair trade practices and subsidies not only for imports of tin mill products, but also for imports of downstream finished products.”

Increases in imports of can components and canned food from China were “clear evidence of that country’s subsidies, overcapacity and unfair pricing”.

CMI president Robert Budway said: “We implore the US steel industry and its unions to join CMI in convincing the Biden administration and Congress to address the threat that imports of Chinese-origin steel can components and canned foods pose to the US manufacturing base and to our nation’s food security.”

Based in Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Cliffs says it is the largest flat-rolled steel company in North America and a leading supplier of automotive-grade steel, with annual sales of around US$12.5 billion.