US to slap countervailing duties on steel stapples from China

The DoC has found that Chinese exporters received countervailable subsidies ranging from 12.38 to 156.99 per cent. The department will now instruct US Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits from importers of steel staples from China based on these preliminary rates.

US imports of steel staples from China were valued at an estimated $88.8 million in 2018, as per DoC figures.

The investigation followed petition filed by Kyocera Senco Industrial Tools Inc, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based company.

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, commerce department has initiated 184 new antidumping and countervailing duty investigations – a 235 per cent increase from the comparable period of the previous administration.

Antidumping and countervailing duty laws provide American businesses and workers with an internationally accepted mechanism to seek relief from the harmful effects of the unfair pricing of imports into the United States. Commerce currently maintains 498 antidumping and countervailing duty orders which provide relief to American companies and industries impacted by unfair trade.

The commerce department is scheduled to announce its final CVD determination by 18 March 2020.

If the commerce department makes an affirmative final determination, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) will be scheduled to make its final injury determination by 1 May 2020. If the commerce department makes an affirmative final determination in this investigation, and the ITC makes an affirmative final injury determination, DoC will issue a CVD order. If commerce makes a negative final determination, or the ITC makes a negative final determination of injury, the investigation will be terminated and no order will be issued.

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 antidumping duties. Companies that receive unfair subsidies from their governments, such as grants, loans, equity infusions, tax breaks, or production inputs, are subject to countervailing duties aimed at directly countering those subsidies.