The US Department of Commerce is preparing to tax aluminum sheet exporters from Taiwan and 17 other countries after on Tuesday determining that they had benefited from subsidies and dumping.
The US International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent body, must approve the decision by April 15 to impose anti-dumping or countervailing duties, a department statement said.
The investigation, launched under former US president Donald Trump’s administration, had been requested by nearly a dozen US aluminum alloy manufacturers, including Arconic Inc and Aleris Rolled Products Inc, which said that they were affected by competing imports at lower prices.
US President Joe Biden’s administration determined that imports from Germany in particular (US$287 million in 2019) benefited from dumping ranging from 40 to 242 percent.
The same is true for aluminum alloy sheets from Bahrain (US$241 million), which the Biden administration said benefited from pricing below the cost of production or the local market of 83 percent.
Imports from India (US$123 million) have benefited from subsidies of 35 to 89 percent, the investigation found.
In October last year, the Trump administration indicated that it had begun to levy preliminary duties in the investigation.
The other targeted countries are Taiwan, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Oman, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain and Turkey.
“If the ITC makes affirmative final injury determinations, Commerce will issue AD or CVD orders,” the department said, referring to anti-dumping or countervailing duties orders.
The department said that 559 orders on various imports are in effect to “provide relief to American companies and industries impacted by unfair trade.”
“Foreign companies that price their products in the US market below the cost of production or below prices in their home markets are subject to AD duties,” it said. “Foreign companies that receive unfair subsidies from their governments, such as grants, loans, equity infusions, tax breaks, or production inputs, are subject to CVD duties aimed at directly countering those subsidies.”
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