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By Anna Peverieri and Johan BODINIER
(Reuters) - ArcelorMittal, the world's second largest steelmaker, has not increased steel shipments into the United States to get ahead of President Donald Trump's potential tariffs, the group's finance chief Genuino Christino said.
"You don't really have a lot of flexibility here to be shipping more steel, so that was not a way to mitigate potential impacts," he told Reuters on Thursday.
ArcelorMittal sells "very-high added value products" in the U.S., notably from its Canadian operations, a key supplier of automotive steel to U.S. manufacturers, Christino said.
The group imports iron ores from its Canada facilities and slabs from Mexico and Brazil for its U.S. supply chain.
If tariffs on Mexico are introduced, ArcelorMittal has the flexibility to reduce slab imports from there and increase them from Brazil instead, a company spokesperson said.
"Our facilities in Mexico and Brazil are capable of producing high quality slabs, automotive qualified," Christino added.
Trump on Monday suspended his threat of steep tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada for 30 days.
Christino estimated that the hit from the potential tariffs would be around $100 million per quarter, in line with analysts' estimates.
The group had guided for a similar quarterly impact in 2018, when Trump last imposed sweeping tariffs on steel imports. However, it divested most of its U.S. assets in 2020, cutting down its footprint in the country.
"The flows from Canada to the U.S. didn't really change" following the divestment, Christino said when asked how this change would affect ArcelorMittal this time around.
While the company says its U.S. trade exposure is manageable, it is also pushing ahead with a major expansion in North America.
"The North American market is a very important market for us," Christino said.
"If you include our mines in Canada, about 40% of our EBITDA is generated in North America, so we will continue to look for options to develop the business in the region."
ArcelorMittal said earlier on Thursday it would build a new steel plant in Calvert, Alabama to meet growing demand from U.S. automakers.
(Reporting by Anna Peverieri and Johan Bodinier in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi)
