U.S. Department of Commerce Affirms Duties on Imported PLT Tires

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced affirmative preliminary determinations in the anti-dumping duty investigations of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The department’s preliminary investigation determined that exporters have dumped passenger tires in the United States at rates of 14.24% to 38.07% for South Korea, 52.42% to 98.44% for Taiwan, 13.25% to 22.21% for Thailand, and up to 22.30% for Vietnam.

As a result, the department will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect cash deposits from importers of passenger tires from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam based on the preliminary rates noted above.

The petitioner is the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC (Pittsburgh, PA).

The department is scheduled to announce its final determinations in these cases on or about May 14, 2021, unless this deadline is extended.

If the department’s final determinations are affirmative, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will be scheduled to make its final injury determinations on or about June 28, 2021.

If the department makes affirmative final determinations of dumping and the ITC makes affirmative final injury determinations, Commerce will issue anti-dumping orders.

If Commerce makes negative final determinations of dumping or the ITC makes negative final determinations of injury, the investigations will be terminated and no orders will be issued.

The 2019 imports of passenger tires from the countries under investigation were approximately valued as follows:

$1.17 billion for South Korea;
$373.0 million for Taiwan;
$1.96 billion for Thailand; and
$469.6 million for Vietnam.

Commerce is conducting a concurrent countervailing duty (CVD) investigation of passenger tires from Vietnam. This proceeding remains ongoing.

According to the Trump Administration, anti-dumping law provides American businesses and workers with an internationally accepted mechanism to seek relief from the harmful effects of unfair pricing of imports into the United States. Commerce currently maintains 542 anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders which provide relief to American companies and industries impacted by unfair trade.