ITC Dumping Decision Due June 23

WASHINGTON – The International Trade Commission (ITC), which held a hearing this week on the anti-dumping duty case involving consumer tires from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, is expected to release its or its decisions on this case on June 23.

The case is then referred to the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is expected to release the agency’s final decision on the investigation on or around July 12, according to the ITC.

Supporters and opponents of the imposition of anti-dumping duties on passenger and light truck (P / LT) tires from the four Asian countries clashed on May 25 to make their case virtually at a hearing hosted by the ITC.

The hearing – which pitted the United Steelworkers (USW) against representatives of a dozen companies and national governments – followed by days of the Commerce Department’s disclosure of its “final” determination that the tires P / LT import from the four targeted Asian lands “are or are likely to be sold in the United States at less than fair value” for the period of investigation, April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020.

The allegation of the consumer tire dumping trade by companies in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam was the culmination of 12 months of investigation since the USW sought redress from the US government in May 2020.

At stake are thousands of jobs – whether in U.S. tire factories or potentially dozens of companies that import and sell tires from the four Asian countries – and more than 85 million tires valued at nearly $ 4 billion. of dollars. Collectively, the imports under investigation represent approximately one-third of the US secondary market for passenger car and light truck tires.

The Commerce Department determined that anti-dumping duties between 13.25% and 98.44% were in order on various companies in the targeted export areas. In this decision, the Commerce Department changed the anti-dumping rates of a number of companies, lowering some and increasing others.

The final prices proposed by the agency are:

• In South Korea – Hankook Tire & Technology Co. Ltd., 27.05% (vs. 38.07%); Nexen Tire Corp., 14.72% (vs. 14.24%); the “all others” rate fell from 27.81% to 21.74%.
• In Taiwan – Cheng Shin Rubber Industry Co. Ltd./Maxxis International, 20.04% (compared to 33.33%, which was already a revision from the initial preliminary rate of 52.42%); Nankang Rubber Industry Co. Ltd., 101.84% (vs. 98.44%); the “all others” rate slipped slightly to 84.75% against 88.82%
• In Thailand – Sumitomo Rubber (Thailand) Co. Ltd., 14.62% (vs. 13.25%); LLIT (Thailand) Co. Ltd. (Linglong), 21.09% (vs. 22.21%); the “all others” rate was slightly raised from 16.66% to 17.08%.
• In Vietnam, the rate for other named companies – Sailun Vietnam Co. Ltd .; Kenda Rubber (Vietnam) Co. Ltd .; Bridgestone Tire Manufacturing Vietnam LLC; Kumho Tire (Vietnam) Co. Ltd .; and Yokohama Tire Vietnam Co. Ltd. – remains at 0%. The Vietnam-wide rate for other companies remained at 22.30%.

In addition, Sailun Vietnam and Kumho Tire Vietnam were assessed countervailing duties of 6.23% and 7.89%, respectively. All other companies were assessed a countervailing duty of 6.46%

Targeted P / LT tire importers / distributors have been paying duty on the tires they import since January, after the Commerce Department preliminary ruled in favor of continuing the investigation.

Partly because of this, imports from Thailand and Taiwan have dropped significantly. first quarter compared to the first three months of 2020, according to the latest Commerce Department data.

If the ITC votes in the affirmative on all four cases, then the Department of Commerce will impose all anti-dumping and countervailing orders; however, if the ITC commissioners voted no on all four, the case would be terminated and the cash deposits held by Commerce would be forfeited to the benefit of the respondent countries.

In addition, the ITC could conceptually vote for some countries and negatively for others.