BRASILIA: The Brazil steelmaker sector is not interested in negotiating lower US tariffs for its products, only their elimination, Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, president of the Aco Brazil steel institute, said Friday.
As a result of a US Section 232 investigation, the Commerce Department Friday recommended a tariff of at least 53% on all steel imported from Brazil and other 11 countries, higher than the recommended global tariff of at least 24% on steel imports from other countries.
“We are not working to reduce the tariff, we are not spending our energy in any kind of calculation [for a lower tariff] but to show that Brazil is not part of the problem, but of the solution,” Lopes said in an interview.
To reach Aco Brazil’s objective, a delegation of CEOs from Brazilian steelmakers, including Usiminas’ Sergio Leite and led by Lopes, is to arrive in the US on February 26 for meetings with US government representatives to discuss the tariffs and with US metallurgical coal producers, Lopes said. Brazil was the top importer of the US met coal in 2017, taking in 6.6 million mt, according to US Census data.
