Turkey planning to take counter-steps against U.S. imposed custom duty.

Turkey will soon be beginning to take counter measures against the decision made by the U.S. to additionally imposing customs duty on steel and aluminum imports, pronounced by Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci. As in early March, Donald Trump President of the U.S., imposed 10% customs duty on imported aluminum and 25% on imported steel. Later in the following month, exempted the countries like Canada, European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Australia and Brazil from the tariffs. Whereas countries like China, Turkey and India are not included in the list of exempted countries. Zeybekci stated that Turkey has a scarcity in steel and iron trade with the U.S. - with imports of over $1.3 billion as opposed to $1.2 billion exports. Zeybekci continued that now counter steps would be taken soon, while putting forward the arguments regarding U.S imports quotations. After doing that, the trade relations between Turkey and the U.S. will be unfavorable, for now leaving all doors open. The ministry carefully and rigorously keeps an eye on the procedure in line with Turkey's interests, Zeybekci added. Last year, Canada headed its way in the country's imports with 5.8 million tons, while the share of Canadian steel in the country's steel imports was 17 %, followed by Brazil with 14 %, South Korea with 10%, Mexico with 9% and Russia with 8%. Whereas Turkey stood sixth in the country's imports last year with 6 %. U.S. imported steels from other countries which included Japan with 5%, Germany with 4%, Taiwan with 3%, and China with 2% in this period. According to Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data, last year, Turkey attained nearly $13.8 billion in exports of steel and steel goods, while $1.2 billion, which corresponds to about 9%of exports, was made to the U.S.

• [Editor:janita]