The US steel industry is pushing the Trump administration to take a sweeping view of what constitutes national security, as it seeks a crackdown on imports from China, South Korea and other countries.
Donald Trump last month ordered a special investigation into the impact on US national security of steel imports under a 1962 law that would allow him to impose far broader tariffs and other restrictions on imports of foreign steel, in what would be the US president’s most significant act of protectionism so far.
At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, industry executives argued that illegal dumping of below-cost steel threatened their ability to supply everything from armour plating and other specialty metals used by the military, to the steel used in electrical transformers and rebar vital to construction.