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American steelmakers complained last year that Chinese companies appeared to be avoiding huge tariffs by diverting products to Vietnam for “minor processing” before they were shipped to the U.S.

We import less steel from Vietnam than we do from China.

The media hasn’t really bothered to pull together the information, but the gist of what I’m reading from trade journals is that steel from non-protected markets is mostly transiting those countries after a tiny % of value is tacked on before being shipped to the US. A sizeable chunk of the origin country is China. I expect Chinese government ministries provide a significant amount of guidance for avoiding foreign tariffs and troubleshooting any trade problems that may arise. The circuitous routing helps to disguise the essentially Chinese nature of the trade deficit in steel.

Here are some numbers from 2014:
https://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/Press%20Releases/2015/IMP1412.pdf

If you look at all the different types of steel mill products, it’s clear there’s a lot of room for tacking on nominal value add at some intermediate point to evade tariffs.

The funny thing about these tariffs is that the press is calling Trump insane over 25% tariffs, while being completely blase about these other tariffs that Obama imposed in 2016:

http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/itc-okays-tariffs-on-steel-imports-from-china-japan
Last month, the Commerce Department announced anti-dumping duties of 266 percent on this product from China and 71 percent on this product from Japan, plus an additional countervailing duty of 266 percent on China.