The U.S. Commerce Department, acting on unfair trade practices complaints by Titan International and the United Steelworkers a complaint later joined by Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire and Denman Tire Corp. launched a formal investigation. The tiremakers and union want the U.S. to impose duties on China-made OTR tires the U.S. group claims are unfairly priced.
The Chinese government claims the investigation is “an abuse of World trade Organization rules,” and will hurt trade relations between the two countries.