Four major US steel producers—Gerdau Ameristeel US Inc., Nucor Corporation Keystone Consolidated Industries, Inc., and Charter Steel—today filed petitions charging that unfairly-traded imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Belarus, Italy, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom are causing material injury to the domestic industry. The petitions allege that producers in each of the 10 countries are dumping wire rod in the US market at the following alleged margins:
Country |
Alleged Dumping Margins |
Belarus |
179.07-304.94% |
Italy |
26.36% |
South Korea |
41.72-53.09% |
Russia |
216.50-821.40% |
South Africa |
159.35-164.08% |
Spain |
32.64% |
Turkey |
45.10% |
Ukraine |
21.64-61.64% |
United Arab Emirates |
69.57% |
United Kingdom |
88.25% |
The petitions also allege that the governments of Italy and Turkey are providing countervailable subsidies to producers of wire rod, and identify numerous subsidy programs related to export loans, credit, and insurance at preferential rates, preferential tax treatment, and government grants, among other programs.
In a statement, the petitioners said the filing “is in response to large and increasing volumes of low-priced imports of wire rod from the subject countries since 2014 that have injured US producers. From 2014 to 2016, subject imports surged into the market at increasingly low prices, with subject import volume growing by over 56 percent and their average price, or unit value, falling dramatically by 32 percent.”
The petitions allege that subject imports were able to penetrate the US market by significantly undercutting US prices. As a result of increasing volumes of low-priced imports, US producers have suffered lost sales and significant declines in prices and profits, the statement said, adding that “foreign producers of wire rod also continue to threaten the domestic industry with additional injury due to their massive and growing production capacity and extensive unused capacity that will be used to export large volumes of unfairly low-priced and subsidized product to the United States. The price declines and financial deterioration that US producers have suffered are likely to continue if duties are not imposed to offset these unfair trading practices.”
The product covered by these petitions is certain hot-rolled products of carbon steel and alloy steel, in coils, of approximately round cross section, less than 19.00 mm in actual solid cross-sectional diameter (carbon and alloy steel wire rod).
The US DOC will determine whether to initiate the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations within 20 days of today's filing of the petitions and the US ITC will reach a preliminary determination of material injury or threat of material injury within 45 days of today's filing. The entire investigative process will take approximately one year, with final determinations of dumping, subsidization, and injury likely occurring in the spring of 2018.