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LEFT: ELSA/GETTY IMAGES; POLITBURO; BLOOMBERG (1); GETTY IMAGES (9)
THE BOTTOM LINE Foreign steel imports into the U.S. are up
24 percent in 2017. As the industry grows angry at Trump’s lack of
trade action, Russia’s Evraz continues winning pipeline contracts.
Ivanka Trump
and Dasha Zhukova
watch tennis at the
2016 U.S. Open
months later. While some of Keystone’s pipes were
made in the U.S., at least a quarter of them came from
a Russian steel company whose biggest shareholder is
an oligarch and Trump family friend. The company,
Evraz North America, supplied Keystone from its
steel plants in Canada and for years has lobbied in
Washington against Trump-style protectionism.
Ten months after his Keystone event, Trump has
yet to deliver on his pledge to boost the fortunes of
American steel. Two self-imposed deadlines for trade
action, one in June and one in July, have come and
gone. Meanwhile, the prospect of tariffs has led to a
surge of cheap foreign steel into the U.S., with imports
rising 24 percent in 2017, the fastest increase in years.
As federal and congressional investigators probe
Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election,
Evraz North America shows that Russians are also
involved in pressing against one of Trump’s main
campaign promises. The company is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Evraz Plc, Russia’s second- largest steel-
maker. It has two factories in the U.S., in Colorado
and Oregon, and four in western Canada, where it
produces steel and large-diameter steel pipe. The
company’s top shareholder is Roman Abramovich,
a billionaire who owns 31 percent of Evraz’s stock.
In 2005 he was the first oligarch allowed to sell his
oil company to the state, taking in $13 billion in a
deal approved by Vladimir Putin.
Abramovich’s ties to the Trumps stem from a
friendship between Ivanka Trump and Abramovich’s
wife, Dasha Zhukova, from whom he announced a
separation in August. Jared Kushner and his brother,
Joshua, invested in Zhukova’s art collection busi-
ness. The Russian couple hosted Ivanka and Jared
in Russia in 2014, and Zhukova attended Trump’s
inauguration as Ivanka’s guest. White House Deputy
Press Secretary Lindsay Walters called Ivanka’s rela-
tionship with Zhukova unrelated to American trade
policy and said mentioning it was “incredibly irre-
sponsible and misleading.”
Evraz won its share of the Keystone XL business
in 2009 and hired a Washington lobbyist named John
Stinson the next year, according to disclosures col-
lected by Bloomberg Government and Open Secrets,
a nonprofit that tracks money in politics. Over the
next seven years, Stinson lobbied the House, Senate,
U.S. Department of Commerce, and Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, earning $2.2 million for rep-
resenting Evraz’s interests. He fought Buy American
language in federal spending bills for transportation,
water infrastructure, and defense, as well as in a bill
specifically about Keystone in 2015—the same year
Obama denied its cross-border permit.
According to federal disclosures, Evraz paid
Stinson $100,000 in the first half of 2017 to per-
suade Congress and the Commerce Department to
exclude its Canadian products from Trump’s steel
import crackdown. Stinson declined to comment.
Christian Messmacher, the company’s vice president
for development, says its lobbying efforts are typical
for the industry. “We, like all other North American
companies, work to provide public officials with our
insights on issues that affect us and our ability to
provide good North American jobs,” he says.
In late May, Evraz won a contract with liquefied
natural gas company Cheniere Energy Inc. to supply
the steel pipe for a 200-mile pipeline to bring natural
gas from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast. The contract,
worth an estimated $100 million, was expected to go
to a Florida-based company, Berg Steel Pipe Corp.,
according to the American Line Pipe Producers
Association. The association put out a press release
in June arguing that Evraz was undercutting U.S.
companies. It asked the Trump administration to
act quickly on new rules and stop “Russian-owned
Evraz” from “aggressively” seeking U.S. contracts
ahead of any new tariffs or quotas on imports.
The Cheniere contract shows how hard it is to
differentiate between foreign and U.S.-made steel.
While losing out to Evraz cost Berg 216 jobs, or
42 percent of its workforce, company Vice President
Jonathan Kirkland told the Mobile, Ala., Press-
Register in June, Berg makes pipelines using steel
from Germany and France. U.S. steel supplies aren’t
reliable enough, Chief Executive Ingo Riemer told
the U.S. International Trade Commission last year.
In September, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
said the administration will defer a decision to impose
tariffs on foreign steel so it can focus on tax reform.
The industry is getting impatient. Steel executives
have been meeting with administration officials. More
than 60 steelworkers met with members of Congress
on Sept. 21 to tell them of their growing frustration
with the White House’s delays. “The president makes
his policy decisions based on what is best for the
American people,” says spokeswoman Walters.
Given the promises Trump made in the cam-
paign, there may be political blowback if he doesn’t
deliver. Although the United Steelworkers union
endorsed Hillary Clinton, many of its members voted
for Trump, helping him to narrow victories in the
Midwest. “Those workers absolutely won’t forget if
they are empty promises,” says Dan Simmons, pres-
ident of Steelworkers Local 1899 in Granite City, Ill.
“Like Elvis says, we want a little less talk and a little
more action.” —Margaret Newkirk and Joe Deaux
POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek October 30, 2017
