China’s General Administration of Customs has issued a notice saying that the Canadian division of the certification authorities can conduct pre-shipment inspections of US scrap until 4 June. It had earlier stopped all pre-certification of US scrap while in the middle of trade negotiations with the USA, Kallanish notes.

The notice also specifies that all Chinese ports can now accept pre-shipment inspection certificates for US scrap issued by the China National Certification and Inspection Group Canada. This allows cargo to be shipped through Chinese ports without additional inspections and approvals.

The move was one of several measures from both China and the USA with short term rolling deadlines, which are apparently designed to create leverage during trade negotiations. A series of visits to Beijing and Washington over the last three weeks have led to some concessions apparently being made and withdrawn. China is attempting to ensure its telecoms giant ZTE is not shut down because of its violation of sanctions on Iran and North Korea. The USA meanwhile is aiming to reduce its trade deficit and harness China’s influence with North Korea to secure a deal there. In the meantime however, traders do not know what policies, taxes or customs regimes will apply by the time their cargos reach port, and volumes are expected to suffer as a result.

Chinese ferrous scrap imports from the USA were up 31.37% to 132,293 tonnes over January-March 2018, according to Chinese customs data. China imported just 6,380t of ferrous scrap from Canada in the first quarter.