The final numbers aren't in, but the United States appears to have imported a record amount of steel last year.
Imports were on pace to capture the highest market share ever, said Thomas Gibson, president of the American Iron and Steel Institute.
Once the year-end numbers are tallied, foreign finished steel imports should capture about 28 percent of the total market share, Gibson said. That exceeds the previous peaks of 26 percent that were set in 1998 and 2006.
"What's causing it at its root is that a very large overcapacity exists in steel, especially in managed economies in Asia," he said. "It's been estimated worldwide overcapacity is as high as 628 million net tons. There's an irrational overcapacity, and they keep adding steel capacity."
China and other foreign countries have continued to build new steel mills because the job creation is politically popular, but then make more steel than they can sell at home, so they try to shop it around abroad. They will sell heavily subsidized steel, sometimes at a loss. Steelmakers do not get the same government subsidies in the United States, which is an attractive dumping ground because of its size and free trade policies.
"We have an open economy and a strong economy," Gibson said.
In 2014, the United States imported 44.2 million net tons of steel that gobbled up about 30 percent of the market share, according to preliminary estimates from The U.S. Commerce Department's Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis. That was a 37 percent increase over the previous year.
Finished steel imports rose 35 percent to 33.5 million net tons last year.
Domestic steelmakers are calling for more trade protections, including the ability to impose countervailing duties on foreign countries that are able to keep steel costs down by artificially manipulating their currency.