US Trade Commission Denies Anti-Dumping Steel Tariff Requests

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, New York

29 August 2002

It's been a bad couple of weeks for the US steel industry, with the administration handing out another 178 exclusions from the tariffs imposed on imports in March, and now with a refusal by the US International Trade Commission of a request from steelmakers to impose anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled steel imports.

The Trade Commission ruled by 4 to 1 that US steelmakers are not being hurt by the foreign steel imports from Japan, India, Australia, Sweden and Thailand. Further cases are pending against a long list of other countries, including many EU member states, Russia and Brazil, and it seems likely that the Commission's decisions will also go against US steel-makers when they are handed down in October.

The requests had been brought by United Steelworkers of America jointly with top steel-makers US Steel Corp, Nucor Corp, and others. "We are bitterly disappointed and we don't know how to respond to it," said Robert S. Miller, chief executive of Bethlehem Steel.

The steel companies' pleas for protection from the administration resulted from a long period of over-capacity which made the industry vulnerable to cheaper foreign competition. President Bush had warned the steel-makers however when he imposed the March tariffs that he would cut short the three-year tariffs if the industry didn't use the reprieve to become strong enough to compete, without protection, with foreign steelmakers.

The steel companies are due to present plans for reducing capacity and consolidating the fragmented industry to the President on 5th September, but it's not clear whether they will be offering enough to prevent further exclusions being given from the March tariffs. So far the exclusions cover only about 10% of the imports hit with tariffs.

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