The Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau (TRIB) supports the International Trade Commission and Department of Commerce’s investigation of imported TBR tires from China.
While the initial investigation is comparing the impacts of new imported tires on new domestically produced tires, TRIB is working with the ITC to educate the commission on the negative impacts these imports are having on the retread industry, TRIB said.
“Many of these low-cost imports are of too low a quality to successfully be retreaded. So, instead of creating an asset that could be reused successfully multiple times by fleets, these Chinese manufacturers of low-quality tires are creating disposable products that are discarded after one use and will contribute to growing numbers of disease-breeding tire piles in our landfills,” said David Stevens, TRIB’s managing director. “While the cost of these low-quality imported tires may seem cheaper in the short-term, they will have long-term detrimental impacts to the retread and commercial truck and bus industries. They will create fewer quality casings that can be retreaded successfully, drive up total cost of ownership and cost per mile of tires for commercial fleets, put thousands of U.S. jobs at risk, and have damaging impacts on the global environment.”
TRIB will continue to work with its member organizations and affiliated groups to help educate the ITC and the DOC on this issue.
