In recent years, due to the sharp increase of China's steel exports to the United States, China's steel exports frequently encounter anti-dumping complaints or investigations from the United States. There are two main reasons for the intensification of steel friction between China and the United States. First of all, the rapid expansion of domestic steel production capacity has greatly increased China's exports to the United States, causing American steel enterprises to panic about "Made in China". Since 2000, domestic steel output has increased by 20% every year, and by 2006, steel output has reached 423 million tons. The rapid expansion of steel production capacity urges domestic steel enterprises to find more sales channels and bigger markets. At the same time, the world economy is in a period of vigorous development, and foreign markets have become an important channel for China's steel products, while the United States is one of China's major steel exporters. With the rapid growth of domestic steel exports, a large number of China steel products have been brought to the American steel market. Before 2005, China never exported more than 654.38+0.5 million tons of steel to the United States. In 2005, it exported 2.3 million tons of steel to the United States, which increased to 5.4 million tons in 2006. The increasing trend of China's steel exports has alarmed the American steel industry, fearing that China will dominate the international steel market. Secondly, the overall price of steel is low, and it has a strong price advantage in the international market. Interest drives a large number of steel enterprises, especially small and medium-sized steel enterprises, to further expand their production capacity and exports, which provides sufficient evidence for the United States to initiate anti-dumping investigations. The price of steel in China is low in the international market. The average price of the same variety is about 180-300 dollars lower than that of foreign steel, which makes domestic steel have a strong price advantage in foreign markets. Generally speaking, there are three main reasons for the low steel price in China: First, the industrial concentration in China is too low. The steel output of South Korea's Pohang Steel Plant alone accounts for 65% of the national steel output, and the industrial concentration of the top three steel mills is 88%. The industrial concentration of the top six steel mills in Japan is 81%; The steel output of six steel enterprises in the EU accounts for 74% of the total steel output in the EU. The industrial concentration of the eight major steel mills in the United States is 73%. Iron and steel industry is a typical scale economy industry. Too low industrial concentration will intensify disorderly competition among enterprises in the steel industry, resulting in low-price competition, which provides conditions for the United States to use WTO rules to restrict the export of China's steel products. At the same time, low industrial concentration will restrict the improvement of innovation ability and competitiveness of enterprises. In 2006, there were 2 1 company in China, accounting for only 47.9% of the national steel output. A large number of small and medium-sized iron and steel enterprises are unable to invest heavily in product research and development and can only produce products with low added value. However, due to low technical requirements and many domestic manufacturers, such products have exceeded domestic demand, and only when they are sold abroad at low prices will they also cause anti-dumping investigations by foreign manufacturers. Second, from the perspective of cost level, the cost of steel products in China is relatively low, and it has great comparative advantages compared with foreign countries in land, labor and energy. For example, in 2004, the labor cost of key large and medium-sized steel enterprises in China accounted for 6.62% of the total cost and 4. 13% of the main business income, while the labor cost of dominant steel enterprises in Japan accounted for 10% of the main business income and that of the United States was 25.438+00%. The low cost of China's steel products ensures the price advantage of China's steel products in the world steel market to a certain extent, thus promoting the export of China's steel products. However, we should see that the relatively low energy cost is only due to the low unit price of energy, not the low energy consumption. On the contrary, compared with developed countries, the energy consumption per ton of steel in China's iron and steel enterprises is 1.5 times that of Japan and 1.2 times that of Europe, which is quite high and worth learning from. Third, the export product structure is unreasonable. China's steel products are mostly crude steel products, with low added value and single export product structure. The main products exported to South Korea are excellent talents, and the main products exported to the United States are seamless steel pipes. Export enterprises are "small, numerous, scattered and miscellaneous". The imbalance in the structure of export products leads to a sudden increase in the export volume of a certain product, which is easy to trigger anti-dumping investigations. For example, the market share of China wire rod in the United States has exceeded 20%, which is also the main reason why American steel mills put forward anti-dumping against China wire rod at the end of 2005. 2 the government's path choice to deal with the steel trade friction. Frequent trade frictions are not conducive to the long-term development of China's iron and steel industry, and enterprises often need the support of industry associations or the government when dealing with trade frictions. 2. 1 Accelerate the formulation of industrial laws and regulations to standardize the export trade order. At present, in view of the trade friction caused by a large number of steel exports, the China Municipal Government has issued a series of related policies, mainly including the export tax rebate rate control policy and the export license management policy. Since the beginning of 2007, the state has frequently issued regulatory policies on adjusting the export tax rebate rate of some commodities, and the National Development and Reform Commission and related enterprises in the steel industry have also set the policy bottom line that steel exports should not exceed the total output 10%. However, because the price difference between domestic and foreign steel products is still large and the demand is strong, the effect is not significant by adjusting the export tax rebate rate. On April 30th, 2007, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs issued Announcement No.41of 2007 "Export License Management for Some Steel Exports". The core content of the announcement is: it is decided to implement export license management for 83 numbered steel products from May 20, and it is stipulated that enterprises limited to general trade export methods must apply to provincial license issuing agencies, and the listed steel export licenses will be managed by "one batch and one license". At the same time, foreign-invested enterprises are required to implement the relevant provisions of the Measures for the Administration of Export Licenses for Goods. This policy is a general license, because it does not involve substantive issues such as export qualification, quantity (quota) and operating rules, so it has no substantive impact on large steel export enterprises, but it has played a role in regulating or restricting small traders, private steel enterprises and enterprises that "hitchhike" export, because it has increased procedures and time. Generally speaking, the problems caused by excessive export cannot be effectively controlled simply by tariff adjustment and unclear license management policies. Therefore, we should set some thresholds for steel export trade access, establish an enterprise export qualification examination system, and identify the qualifications of export enterprises from the aspects of export quantity, variety, environmental protection and energy saving, so as to limit the backward production capacity that does not meet the overall interests of the country and the steel industry policy and reduce trade friction. 2.2 Formulate a medium-and long-term strategy to deal with trade friction (1) to maintain a reasonable scale of steel production capacity by improving industry concentration. Low industry concentration is the core problem of China's iron and steel industry, and it is the fundamental reason for the poor market control, low independent innovation ability and weak comprehensive ability of Chinese iron and steel industry enterprises, which leads to low-price competition and excessive export of export products. Improving the concentration of iron and steel industry is the primary task of China iron and steel industry at present, and restructuring is a very important way. However, due to various obstacles such as ideas, systems, interests and personnel, it is difficult to reorganize iron and steel, and the problem of "integration" but not "integration" is serious. The government should properly solve practical problems such as concept, system, interests and personnel, and further guide and encourage enterprises to take the road of joint reorganization. (2) Accelerate the elimination of backward production capacity, realize energy conservation and environmental protection, and change the unreasonable export structure. Simplification of export products is an important reason for trade friction. Although the state has gradually implemented the policy of eliminating backward production capacity in the steel industry since 2005, with the improvement of foreign trade situation, some small private iron and steel enterprises choose to cluster production around large steel mills or areas rich in mineral, coke and coal resources to form industrial clusters, and occupy the market with low-cost advantages by using cheap labor, almost zero social burden and environmental protection investment. At the same time, due to limited technical capacity, these small enterprises mainly produce crude steel products, with low added value and high energy consumption level, resulting in single export products. Strictly implementing the systems and measures of industry access, industry supervision, energy conservation and environmental protection, accelerating the elimination of backward production capacity, realizing energy conservation and environmental protection, and standardizing the behavior of these small enterprises are very important for improving the unreasonable export structure. (3) Establish a new foreign trade promotion system. Since 2006, steel exports have surged and prices have fallen. This not only aggravates trade friction, but also makes domestic enterprises bear the double burden of rising costs and trade friction in low-price competition. In the situation of increasing trade friction, the government should establish policies to encourage the export of high-end products; Encourage exports to many regions and countries, especially to developing countries; The new foreign trade promotion system with information support, technical services and tax support as the main means is to encourage the export of products that are not prone to trade friction and products with proprietary technical characteristics. This will help to reduce international trade friction and further reduce the negative impact of export tax on steel enterprises.