Friday afternoon, the Department of Commerce issued a negative preliminary determination in the anti-dumping duty investigation of imports of certain new pneumatic OTR tires from India, finding that ATC Tires Private Ltd. and Balkrishna Industries Limited (BKT) had not sold tires in the U.S. at less than fair value.
Due to the negative preliminary determination, the DOC has not established a dumping margin for Indian tire companies and no cash deposits will be collected at this time.
The United Steelworkers (USW), who originally filed a petition against these imports from India, is disappointed with the ruling.
“The USW was disappointed in the preliminary results announced Friday by the USDOC. Petitioners have raised a number of important issues in advance of the preliminary comments,” said Leo W. Gerard, international president of the USW. “Until disclosure materials are provided to USW trade counsel, we won’t know if those issues were addressed in the preliminary or not.”
“Our members have suffered harm from OTR imports. The USW will be looking to the Commerce Department to address all issues raised by petitioners in their final to ensure that any dumping is in fact addressed and offset.”
The DOC started its investigation into OTR tires from India, Sri Lanka and China in early February. The International Trade Commission dropped its investigation into Chinese OTR tires later that month.
The DOC is scheduled to announce its final anti-dumping determination on or around Jan. 4, 2017, and the ITC is scheduled to make its final injury determination in February 2017.
An anti-dumping order could still be put in place if the DOC and the ITC make an affirmative final determination that imports of certain new pneumatic off-the-road tires from India materially injure, or threaten material injury, the domestic industry. If both parties find the final determination to be negative, no anti-dumping order will be issued.
In June, the DOC released its preliminary determinations in the countervailing duty investigations of imports of certain new pneumatic OTR tires from India and Sri Lanka. A final determination is set for October 2016.
