The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) determined this week that revoking existing antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imports of passenger and light truck tires from China would likely lead to a continuation or recurrence of material injury within a reasonably foreseeable time. As a result, existing orders on imports of PLT tire products from China will remain in place.
Those orders, determined in 2015, include anti-dumping margins of 29.92% on Giti Tire products and 14.35% on Sailuyn Group Co., Ltd. products. The ITC says separate rate companies received a final dumping margin of 25.3% and all other producers/exporters in China received a final dumping margin of 87.99%.
In the 2015 countervailing duties investigation, Giti Tire (Fujian) Co., Ltd., received a final subsidy rate of 37.2%; Cooper Kunshan Tire Co., Ltd. received a final subsidy of 20.73%; and Shandong Yongsheng Rubber Group Co., Ltd received a rate of 100.77% since “adverse facts” weren’t available with the company failing to respond to the Department of Commerce’s request for information, according to documents from the investigation. All other producers/exporters in China have been assigned a final subsidy rate of 30.87%.
The USW originally filed a claim against Chinese-made tires in June 2014.
The action to uphold these duties imposed in 2015 is a result of the ITC’s five-year sunset review process required by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. This process requires the Department of Commerce to “revoke an anti-dumping or countervailing duty order – or terminate a suspension agreement – after five years, unless both parties determine that revoking the order (or terminating the suspension agreement) would likely to lead to the continuation or recurrence of dumping or material injury within a “reasonably foreseeable time,” according to the ITC.
The five-year sunset reviews concerning PLT tires imported from China were instituted on July 1, 2020. On Oct. 5, 2020, four out of five members of the ITC voted to conduct an expedited review.
The Commission’s full public report on PLT imports from China will be available by Feb. 26 this year on the U.S. ITC’s website.
