The United Steelworkers (USW) Monday applauded the 6-0 affirmative vote by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) on a petition in the final antidumping portion of a case against imports of oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from China.
USW President Leo W. Gerard said today's vote successfully ends a year-long investigation and record of testimony by members of Congress. "We are pleased our government investigated the evidence of China's trade violations and cited stiff penalties," said Gerard. "China's state-owned steel pipe exporters are predators seeking to steal American jobs and destroy our domestic industries in violation of their trade obligations.
"When the anti-dumping duties are added to those already being collected since January for Chinese subsidized oil tubular goods, we will have at minimum - an effective 40 percent tariff rate. China's cheating with subsidized and dumped imports are now going to be a bad deal. Consistent and swift US trade law enforcement must be the standard with our trading partners if we are to retain good jobs and rebuild our economic manufacturing capacity."
According to Roger B. Schagrin, trade counsel for the petitioners of Washington-based Schagrin Associates, the level of antidumping duties put into place to offset the Chinese from underselling in the US market will be imposed in late May -- ranging from 30 to 100 percent. "The 30 percent duties against most Chinese producers should be sufficient to allow the US industry to regain their footing," he said.
"We are particularly pleased that one of the largest Chinese producers, Jiangsu Changbao Steel Tube Co., had their margin raised from zero at the preliminary stage to 99.2 percent in the final application, because they were found to have submitted falsified documents."
USW Vice President Tom Conway, who handles labor agreement negotiations with the pipe companies, said the tariffs or OCTG pipe are timely for the US oil and natural gas industry plans to ramp up production again. "We now can expect callback of laid-off American pipe workers who can share in the recovery of this industry with sustainable jobs as the inventory of illegally-traded Chinese pipe is eliminated," said Conway.
The ITC vote is the final step in this trade case filed on April 8, 2009. The trade commission's injury hearing in this case was held in December. At the hearing, Gerard testified why it was important the industry and workers received relief, explaining that the domestic OCTG pipe producers lost 2,421 workers between the end of 2008 and September 2009.
The ITC had issued a final affirmative vote on threat of injury with the countervailing duty (CVD) case on Dec. 30, 2009. Final CVD, or anti-subsidy margins ranged from 10 to 16 percent and became effective in January 2010.
This case was the largest China trade case brought by any sector of US industry based on volume and value of imports. During the course of the investigation 47 US House members and 13 US Senators wrote to the trade commission about the importance of obtaining relief for the industry and workers. The final injury hearing involved testimony by congressional members and governors from Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as the mayor of Youngstown, Ohio.
In addition to the USW as co-petitioner, the eight producers on the OCTG petition are: US Steel Corp., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.; Maverick Tube Corp., Hickman, Arkansas; Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel, Pueblo, Colorado; Northwest Pipe, Vancouver, Washington; TMK IPSCO, Downers Grove, Illinois; V&M Star, LLP, Houston, Texas.; V&M TCA, Houston, Texas.; and Wheatland Tube Corp., Beachwood, Ohio.