Trump tariffs to boost BlueScope, but China steel a ‘threat’

“The potential risk for us is that we see material dislocated from other markets, and it comes to Australia, and it’s something we’re talking to the federal government about,” Vassella said.

Referring to China’s 110 million tonnes of exported steel, he said: “That’s just a massive volume of steel that gets dumped out of that country because of the softness of their domestic economy and the over capacity that they’ve built.

“So we need a really strong, diligent, effective, quick to act anti-dumping regime, or … we’ll see material flow from other parts of the world and come to our country and undermine our domestic manufacturing capacity.”

More than $1 billion worth of goods are potentially exposed to Trump’s tariff plan, with Australia sending $640 million worth of steel and $440 million of aluminium to the US last year, according to US trade data.

As highlighted by the Australian government, the US maintains a trade surplus with Australia along with a free trade agreement since 2002.

Vassella said BlueScope was working hard with the new administration to demonstrate the bona fides of its relationship.

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“Clearly, there’s a very strong trade surplus from the US to Australia, AUKUS, our alliances, and of course, last time [there were tariffs], we were granted an exemption, and then operated under a quota very diligently for the last five or six years,” he said.

BlueScope shares jumped to their highest level in two years, up 13 per cent to $25.25, on Vassella’s upbeat commentary and the company’s latest numbers.

While the steelmaker posted a 59 per cent drop in net profit to $179.1 million for the six months ended December 31, the number was still well ahead of consensus analyst forecasts of $170 million.

Underlying earnings for the period was down 57 per cent to $309 million and BlueScope has bumped up its interim dividend to 30¢.

With Reuters

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