After the Trump administration finalized late last month tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, based on what it termed national security considerations, some developers and contractors began to rapidly award structural steel contracts in what at least one fabricator said was an attempt to avoid even higher steel costs in the future.
在唐纳德·特朗普总统（Donald Trump）3月9日根据《 1962年贸易扩张法》第232条征收关税之后，政府与国家对钢铁全面征收25％的全面征税和铝的10％进行了谈判。但是在5月31日，美国商务部表示无法与加拿大，墨西哥和欧盟达成协议。
首席执行官乔·卡斯科（Joe Casucci）说，FJM Ferro Inc.是纽约州布鲁克林的钢铁制造商和主要在纽约市地区工作的钢铁店，立即看到订单的增加。在6月初，他告诉美国金属价格和市场趋势的在线资料美国金属市场（AMM），“相当多”即时合同奖。他指出：“人们非常担心这种钢立即被释放，而不是当您竞标工作时发生的典型阻力。”
AMM表示，在最初的第232条执法公告之后，美国钢板厂宣布了两次价格上涨，每吨45美元，每吨35美元，大多数Beam产品都在4月初的平均售价为20美元。
FJM Ferro used to be able to hold its bid and steel prices for 30 to 60 days, but market uncertainty now allows it to keep prices firm for only 15 days, said Casucci.
建筑公司的高管和估算员在试图建立供应链策略时感到同样的焦虑，以实现项目截止日期，并在材料成本上越来越确定。18luck.cubTrent Wachsnicht, senior vice president and group estimating manager at JE Dunn Construction, Kansas City, Mo., notes that with rapidly changing government pronouncements that include counter-tariffs from affected exporting countries, “it’s a bit early to have a solid strategy in terms of how you’re going to manage [this], because product categories that are tariffed are changing, too.”
He says the company is monitoring tariff risks for key materials products to determine “how we’re advising our clients and our business partners in terms of design.” Wachsnicht says the process has forced JE Dunn to strengthen its supply chain-management focus to ensure it has enough purchasing options beyond one or two countries or a limited number of suppliers in any project locale.
更多关税？更多的不确定性
Commerce于6月20日宣布了第一个第232条关于钢铁和铝的排除条款，从七家公司中确认了42个排除请求，这些公司从日本，瑞典，比利时，德国和中国进口钢铁产品。
The department also announced tariffs on a wide range of Chinese products separate from the Section 232 steel levy, and a preliminary antidumping determination that Chinese aluminum alloy sheet metal was sold in the U.S. at 167% below fair market value. The uncertainty is causing some contractors to play a wait-and-see game with purchasing.
Ryan Moss, project manager for McCarthy Building Cos., says the firm is “still figuring out final costs for the specialty steel,” which “has not allowed us to place orders for a majority” of a $280-million multibuilding campus redevelopment at Washington University in St. Louis. “It looks to be around a 20% impact at this point, plus an added four to six weeks of additional fabrication, but still to be determined,” he said, not expecting a clearer picture until early August.
豁免和排斥
行业贸易集团已向商业提出请愿，以更加清楚何时可能征收新的关税以及如何加快排除申请。迄今已提交了超过20,000份供排除的请愿书，但只有91项被裁定。商务部长威尔伯·罗斯（Wilbur Ross）在6月20日在参议院财政委员会面前露面时说，该部门将对可能非法膨胀价格的公司进行另一项调查。但是他没有缓解建设和制造业对该部门是否有人力快速加快关税排除纠纷的担忧。
罗斯在听证会上说：“没有理由关税将钢的价格提高远远超过关税的百分比，但这就是正在发生的事情。”“这显然不是关税的结果，这显然是该行业参与者反社会行为的结果。”自今年年初以来，基准美国钢铁价格上涨了近40％，钢铁制造商表示，他们只是在收取市场价格。
“A few of the tariffs have actually taken effect, and many more have been threatened and may come about very soon, but as we’ve seen in the past three months, some of those deadlines got pushed back or eliminated,” says Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors. He points to contractors that have to “prepare a firm bid now and wait until they know if they’ve locked in the price to then go out and buy the materials.” Firms are “really rolling the dice more than usual on what [project] costs are going to be,” adds Simonson.
辛辛那提梅塞尔建筑公司（Cincinnati Construction）首席运营官马克·卢格（Mark Luegering）说：“泥泞的泥浆。”“我们知道风险，我们与客户和我们的潜艇分享了这种风险，我们将我们的工作定价以掩盖它。”他说，虽然合同条款为“特别是由这些关税驱动的风险，但我们添加了语言来保护我们”。Luegering补充说：“如果业主想继续前进，他们必须拥有这种风险。”18luck官网
希望购买其钢材用品向前发展的总承包商面临挑战，但西蒙森说，美国建筑市场仍在增长这一事实可能是许多参与者的一线希望。
其他行业专家同意。“虽然我们仍然看到the occasional price increase, we believe that structural steel prices are starting to stabilize on the shape side of the business, and that comparatively speaking, prices are still below the highs that we saw in 2012,” says Charlie Carter, president of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), which represents steel fabricators.
结束游戏：自由交易？
卡特还指出，现在有了对加拿大，墨西哥和欧盟的关税，他的协会希望看到额外的钢铁进口税款。目前，只有磨坊生产的钢的关税。
将墨西哥和加拿大纳入关税有助于解决转运问题。中国和其他具有较高生产能力的国家生产的钢铁被运送到包括北美自由贸易协定合作伙伴在内的第三国，以制造成横梁和托梁等建筑产品，然后将其运送到美国市场。
Having no tariff on fabricated products hurts domestic structural steel fabricators as prices of fabricated products increase domestically while the tariffs applied to raw steel do not affect foreign fabricators’ imported finished products.
哥伦比亚州哥伦比亚总裁戴维·扎莱斯（David Zalesne）总部位于南卡罗来纳州的欧文·钢铁公司（Owen Steel）兼现任AISC主席，他说，政府将有必要采取进一步的行动，因为它继续完善其一系列关税和其他贸易执法方法，即使这样做会产生进一步的不确定性在买家中。
“我个人的感觉是，本届政府不太可能长期遵守其签名贸易政策的最终运行，并且它将在某个时候采取行动解决[未加入的外国捏造钢]问题，希望很快就会Zalesne说。“一旦漏洞封闭，仍然会有足够的国内制造能力来确保定价在水平竞争环境中的国内制造商中具有竞争力。”
罗斯在参议院听证会上回应了这一观点，他告诉怀疑的参议员：“（关税）的目的是要获得比以前更接近自由贸易的决赛。”
