As predicted in an earlier post, US long products imports in April dropped to a new historical low. Based on reported import licenses, US long products imports dropped 45% from 168,000 short tons in March to 92,000 tons in April. About 74,000 tons of this decline come from a 73% reduction in rebar licenses compared to March actual imports, with a drop in Turkish license applications accounting for a major portion of the drop. Wire rod import license applications also dropped significantly by 24% to 28,000 tons.
You may have noticed from our spreadsheet that import licenses have not predicted actual imports very accurately in February and March. This was due to rebar licenses, which were much higher than actual imports in February and much lower in March. February licenses were high because they were revised downward by 28,000 tons after our mid-March data collection date. March licenses were low because Turkey imported about 80,000 tons of rebar but applied for only 48,000 tons of licenses. Feel free to comment if you can explain this.
