On May 26, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) stated that the US has continued to act unfairly in its antidumping and countervailing investigation against Chinese products, in particular by adopting the "surrogate country" system and not allocating Chinese state-owned steel enterprises differentiated duties and using external benchmarks for China, thereby posing artificial obstacles to China. The US Department of Commerce (US DOC) had last week announced its final decision for its antidumping and countervailing investigation of anti-corrosion steel plate imports from China, imposing antidumping (AD) duty of 209.97 percent and countervailing duty (CVD) of 39.05 percent.
The MOC pointed that the US initiated a total of 43 antidumping investigations and 22 countervailing investigations against China in 2015, making it the largest user of trade remedy investigations worldwide. According to the MOC, while countries across the globe are making efforts to inject new vitality into global economic growth and push forward trade liberalization, the US has resorted to trade remedy investigations to close its domestic market and has practiced trade protectionism. "China is now preparing to legally challenge the steel duties [the duties imposed by the US last week], while it is also encouraging and supporting its steel enterprises in defending themselves according to the Word Trade Organization (WTO) rules," the MOC stated. In addition, the MOC has urged the US to adhere closely to WTO rules and make common efforts to cope with the issue of excess capacity amid sluggish economic growth rather than taking unreasonable actions and practicing trade protectionism.