The Department of Commerce has lowered antidumping duties for Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co. Ltd., which is represented in the U.S. by Maxxis International – USA.
The department lowered import duties for the company from 52.42% to 30.21% based on a “ministerial error,” or “an error in addition, subtraction, or other arithmetic function clerical error resulting from inaccurate copying, duplication, or the like… .”
According to the department, a significant ministerial error merits a correction when there’s a change of “at least five absolute percentage points in, but not less than 25 percent of, the weighted-average dumping margin calculated in the original preliminary determination.”
The amended duties stem from the United Steelworkers’ (USW) May 2020 petition alleging that PLT tires from Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam were dumped in the U.S. In the department’s affirmative preliminary determination on the case published in December 2020, Cheng Shin Rubber, along with Nankang, Hankook, Nexen and Sumitomo, were assessed dumping rates upwards of 10%.
Nankang Rubber Tire Corp. Ltd. also filed ministerial comments alleging that the Commerce Department failed “to use a home market of ‘’viable’ size as the basis for normal value” when determining the duties. However, Nankang’s dumping rates remained at 98.44%. As a result of the department lowering Cheng Shin’s dumping rates, it also lowered the “all others” dumping rate from 88.82% to 84.83%.
