A better employment, environmental and trade option would to legislate a certain percentage of raw materials mined here must be processed here.
Look at the situation in a certain rio tinto site in Gove in the N.T where they are planning on shutting the aluminium refinery. The agreement was mine and process it here but it seems they have found a loophole and will virtually bankrupt the town of 4000 putting 1100 out of work leaving only 350 working in the mine.
In most HEAVY Raw materials conversion industry labour is between 5-20% of the unit cost so in the case of steel and alumina moving O/S does not explain the 50% reduction in production cost for alumina. Say you pay 1/4 wages in china , this equals at best a 15% reduction! So where does the other 35% come from? Could it be cheaper raw materials, no same stuff + shipping costs , energy! their importing our coal and again add transport.
One of the MAJOR costs in heavy industry production over here are emissions controls, with some emission control equipment being FAR FAR more expensive than the production equipment itself, but they would never cut that area would they;)
