The US International Trade Commission voted Wednesday to continue antidumping and countervailing (AD/CVD) duties on hot rolled steel imports from six of the ten countries under review, including China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and Ukraine. Duties on hot rolled steel imports from Argentina, Kazakhstan, Romania and South Africa were terminated.
The antidumping/countervailing duty charges for the affected countries can be reviewed, if requested, every year, and unless a country has three de minimis rulings in their yearly reviews, the next sunset review for these countries will be in 2012. The AD/CVD orders will likely stay in effect until 2012, but it is entirely feasible that the actual dumping margins could be brought down to zero.
While the ruling was a clear win for the US domestic steel industry, steel purchasers in the manufacturing sector aren't rejoicing. The trade association group representing the US metalforming industry, Precision Metalforming Association (PMA), released a statement calling the ruling a "tough blow for American steel consumers."
PMA president William E. Gaskin said, "Today's decision ignores the reality of the marketplace: to remain competitive and meet customer demand, industrial consumers need to count on consistent supplies of globally priced raw materials. This decision provides another blow to American metalformers and other manufacturers already struggling to successfully compete in the global marketplace."