Will Chinese firm use steel company deal to steal secrets, endangering US national security?

Trump administration officials are abandoning their threat to raise tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese goods. Many people are now expecting that a new trade deal between U.S. and China is imminent.

While the Chinese tariff issue may be receding, a real sticking point between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will remain and fester: whether the Chinese are compromising U.S. national security. A clear example of those concerns surfaced this week.

A group of grass-roots conservative leaders led by Morton Blackwell of the Weyrich Group and Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots has just sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin demanding an immediate security review of a joint venture between a Pittsburgh specialty steel maker and a Chinese firm that is the world’s largest stainless steel producer.

Allegheny Technologies hopes to use the joint venture to import 336,000 metric tons of stainless steel slabs every year from an Indonesian mill owned by China’s Tsingshan Group. The slabs – which would be free of any tariffs – would then be turned into 60-inch-wide steel sheets. About 100 new jobs would be created at an Allegheny plant in Midland, Pennsylvania.

The conservative leaders say the joint venture between Allegheny and Tsingshan hasn’t yet been reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).