The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that Canada is short of steel. The Post's Gabriel Friedman quotes Butch Mandel, chief executive officer of Welded Tube of Canada in Concord, Ont., saying: "There isn't a buyer of hot-rolled steel that is getting close to what their needs are. We are all short steel." Companies such as his can buy steel from one of the three mills in Canada and transform it into products that range from structural beams used in construction, infrastructure and heavy equipment manufacturing to the pipes and casings designed for oil and gas and mineral exploration. Adding a supply problem, rather than a demand problem, to the list of the Canadian steel sector's woes provides a new twist to the turmoil racking the sector. Prime Minister Mark Carney has been trying to shore up the steel sector ever since the U.S. President Donald Trump erected 50-per-cent tariffs in 2025 that threw the market into chaos. Earlier this week, Stelco, owned by U.S.-based Cleveland-Cliffs, announced it would indefinitely idle its cold-rolled steel and galvanized operations in Hamilton, which is expected to result in 350 layoffs. The company's owner, a big Trump supporter, has framed it as a demand problem.