Panama City, 6 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Minister of Foreign Relations Celso Lafer declared Tuesday that the decision announced by the United States to restrict the importation of steel "favors Brazil in some items and jeopardizes the country in others." In a preliminary analysis, since he wasn't entirely informed about the size and scope of this decision, Lafer said that the measure affects Brazil in the exportation of 3 types of steel derivatives: semi-processed products, finished steel plates and long products.

In relation to semi-processed products, Lafer pointed out that Brazil was expecting to export around 3.3 million tons of this product to the United States this year, and not 2.5 million. On the other hand, Lafer assessed that Brazil is in a more favorable position than European Union nations, which, according to him, were the ones most affected by the measures of safeguard that the U.S. government employed to help the American steel industry out of its current crisis. (MW)