Steel market uncertainty has continued to increase globally over the past seven days as geopolitical issues are raising further concerns in strategic geographic areas such as Turkey, Russia and China.

Last week the US, supported by some of its allies, began a military operation in Syria, accelerating further the conflict with Russia and the governments openly supporting the actions of Syria’s president Assad.

The escalation in Syria has had a rapid effect, for example, on the value of the Turkish Lira, which fell to a new low against the dollar. The value of the currency has been reducing since the end of 2010, and the current low point is further increasing concerns in global markets. This could well have a direct effect on steel because of Turkey’s predominant position as an importer of scrap from the EU and the US and an exporter of long finished products.

The uncertainty created by the US decision to start a military operation in Syria happened in a period in which trade issues are also causing significant uncertainty in the steel market.

At the beginning of last week the Chinese government formally asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to intervene in the US’ imposition of 25% steel blanket tariffs as a result of its 232 investigation.