Association News

President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators agreed upon a new infrastructure funding plan. The news was greeted warmly by several trade groups.

The North American service center industry continued to rebound from the depths of first-half 2020, the Metals Service Center Institute reported in its latest Metals Activity Report. Shipments of steel and aluminum from both the United States and Canada increased year over year for the fourth straight month.

Global steel production totaled 174.4 million tons in May, the Brussels-based World Steel Association reported. Crude steel production was up 16.5 percent compared with the same month in 2020.

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector grew in June, reports the nation’s purchasing managers in the Institute for Supply Management’s ISM Report on Business. The PMI for June was 60.6 percent, a decline of 0.6 percentage points from the prior month.

The Precision Metalforming Association joined 32 other trade associations in calling for President Joe Biden to terminate Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs in place since 2018. The associations’ letter builds on a separate letter from 300-plus U.S. manufacturing companies who last month requested the Biden administration put an end to these tariffs.

Service center shipments of steel and aluminum continued their year-over-year recovery in June, according to the latest Metals Activity Report from the Metals Service Center Association, Rolling Meadows, Ill.

Several trade associations representing the industrial metals sector submitted a letter to U.S. House and Senate lawmakers to persuade them to invest in metals-heavy infrastructure.

Manufacturing continues to grow at a healthy clip in the United States, with the PMI registering 61.2 percent in May, up 0.5 percentage points from April. This represented the 12th consecutive month of growth in the Institute for Supply Management’s monthly survey of the nation’s purchasing agents.

The aluminum associations of the United States, Europe, Canada?and Japan welcome G7 trade ministers’ commitment to stronger international rules on trade.

Richard Marabito was elected board chairman for the Metals Service Center Institute during the trade group’s virtual annual meeting. Marabito, the CEO of Cleveland-based Olympic Steel, replaces outgoing chairman Eddie Lehner, president and CEO of Ryerson, Chicago.