ANNUAL REPORT

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Figure 5: China’s Monthly Crude Steel Production, 2016
Source: World Steel Association, ‘‘2016 Press Releases.’’
Case Study: Impact of Chinese Overcapacity on U.S. Steel Producers
As the leading driver of the current worldwide steel glut, China
is widely blamed for triggering a global steel crisis. 154 From 2004
to 2014, global steel production increased by 57 percent, with
China contributing 91 percent of the increase. 155 During the same
period, global steel demand increased by only 43.3 percent between
2005 and 2015. 156 Although China’s steel production declined by
2.3 percent year-on-year in 2015, Chinese factories still produced
more than 800 million metric tons of steel—almost eight times
more than the United States produced last year and more than the
entire world produced in 1995. 157
Faced with declining domestic demand due to cutbacks in residential
and commercial construction projects, China’s steel industry
has relied more heavily on exports, dumping subsidized steel
exports into global markets and putting the U.S. steel industry at
risk. China was the world’s largest steel exporter in 2015, with 110
million metric tons of steel exports—a 378 percent increase from
2009 levels. 158 China’s steel exports accounted for 13.7 percent of
its total steel production in 2015 amid waning domestic demand,
up from 4 percent in 2009. 159 The volume of Chinese steel exports
to the United States grew to nearly 2.2 million metric tons in
2015—a 176.7 percent increase since 2010—bringing China’s share
of U.S. steel imports from 3.6 percent in 2010 to 6.1 percent.* Although
Chinese steel exports to the United States decreased 66
percent in the first seven months of 2016 compared to the same pe-
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* The largest exporters of steel to the United States are Canada, Brazil, and South Korea,
which account for 15 percent, 14 percent, and 13 percent, respectively, of all U.S. steel imports.
China is the United States’ seventh-largest source of steel. China Trade Extra, ‘‘New Commerce
Report Highlights Largest Importing, Exporting Steel Markets,’’ August 2, 2016.
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