East Asian Trade Cooperation versus US and EU Protectionist Trends and their Association to Chinese Steel Exports

The Asia-Pacific region has recently witnessed unprecedented trade cooperation, prompted especially by China. Successfully negotiated Chinese bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements are now common, leading to greater rates of economic success for all involved parties, particularly Chinese exporters. FTA’s are not limited to this region, though. The success of the Chinese pursuit of new FTA’s has inspired economic rivals to pursue their own new FTA’s. Many of these are developed countries which have a history of filing anti-dumping grievances with the World Trade Organization, many of which have been directed at China. This has led to heightened international trade tensions between China and non-Chinese FTA partners. For example, the US Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed FTA between the US and East Asian countries, intentionally did not include China. Many attribute the exclusion of China to the influence of US labor groups that have spearheaded anti-dumping grievances along with similar groups in other developed countries in an attempt to thwart China’s efforts to increase their exports to these regions. The past few years have seen sharp increases in Chinese steel exports in particular, leading to heightened protectionist practices within the US and the EU. This study will assess the merits of these anxieties by analyzing the direction of Chinese steel to determine if Chinese steel is flowing more to their FTA partners or to developed countries without FTA’s in place.