[SMM Analysis] US 200 billion tariff list on China basically covers all Manganese products

SMM, July 16: on July 11, the United States announced a list of tariffs to be imposed on China's $200 billion worth of products, and the trade war may escalate. After SMM finishing, it is found that almost all manganese related products are included in the list: electrolytic manganese, manganese products, manganese alloys, manganese dioxide and manganese oxide.

However, most operators believe that the tariff has a limited direct impact on China's manganese market. At present, in the international trade of China's manganese products, only electrolytic manganese and its products are exported in large quantities overseas every year. in 2017, China exported a total of 472400 tons of electrolytic manganese and manganese products, of which 20500 tons were exported to the United States. It accounted for 4.3 per cent of total exports.

In the aspect of manganese alloys, because the original import and export tariff level has been as high as 20%, so this kind of goods have been little international trade, almost completely unaffected by the trade war.

At present, the product that will be most affected may be manganese dioxide. Some large manufacturers said that the proportion of electrolytic manganese dioxide exports and exports to the United States are relatively high, tariff entry into force will have a significant impact.

On the whole, although the tariff list has a limited direct impact on China's manganese export market, market participants believe that the imposition of tariffs has a negative impact on the market environment, so the manganese industry will certainly be affected.

Manganese's most important downstream, the steel industry, steel exports fell 26.4% in the first quarter compared with the same period last year. According to SMM analysis, the sharp decline in exports in the first quarter was mainly due to the steel and aluminum tariffs initiated by Trump. however, due to the decline in the proportion of China's steel exports year by year, especially the share of exports to the United States accounting for about 6 percent of the total exports, Therefore, the US tariff will not have a significant impact on China's steel market in the short term.