The US Department of Commerce on Friday said that Taiwan’s steel exporters sold certain steel products to the US market at unfairly low prices.
US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced in a statement the affirmative final ruling in the department’s anti-dumping duty probe that found that Taiwan exporters dumped steel concrete reinforcing bars into the US market.
According to the department, Taiwan’s firms that make steel concrete reinforcing bars sold their products to the US at 3.5 percent to 32.01 percent lower than fair market prices.
The department said it made the findings based on evidence provided by the interested groups.
“The United States can no longer sit back and watch as its essential industries like steel are destroyed by foreign companies unfairly selling their products in the US markets,” Ross said. “We will continue to take action on behalf of US industry to defend American businesses, their workers and our communities adversely impacted by unfair imports.”
The department is to instruct US Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits from the Taiwanese vendors at tariffs of between 3.5 percent and 32.01 percent, it said.
The affected Taiwanese firms in the final ruling include Power Steel Co Ltd (源剛企業) and Lo-Toun Steel and Iron Works Co Ltd (羅東鋼鐵), which face anti-dumping tariffs of 3.5 percent and 32.01 percent respectively, the department said.
The two companies were the mandatory respondents to the probe.
All other producers and exporters of steel concrete reinforcing bars from Taiwan are to face a tariff of 3.5 percent, the department said.
A probe launched by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) is under way to determine whether the US industry has been damaged by imports of steel concrete reinforcing bars from Taiwan.
The department said that if the ITC makes an affirmative final injury determination, expected on Sept. 5 or before, the department would issue an anti-dumping order.
Steel concrete reinforcing bars imported in either straight length or coil form regardless of metallurgy, length, diameter or grade are subject to investigation, the department said.
Deformed steel wires with bar markings would be subjected to an elongation test, the department added.
In September last year, on behalf of its members, the Rebar Trade Action Coalition filed a petition with the department, alleging that steel concrete reinforcing bar vendors from Taiwan, Japan and Turkey violated the US’s anti-dumping rules.
Last year, Taiwan’s exports of steel concrete reinforcing bars totaled US$53.02 million, up from US$17.57 million a year earlier, making it the third-largest supplier to the US market, the department’s data showed.
Turkey, the largest steel concrete reinforcing bar supplier to the US, has been slapped with anti-dumping tariffs ranging between 5 percent and 8 percent, while Japan, the second-largest supplier, is faced with a financial punishment of more than 200 percent, the department said.
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