US mills petitioned the government to impose antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese stainless steel sheet and strip, according to documents filed Friday.
AK Steel, ATI Flat Rolled Products, North American Stainless and Outokumpu Stainless USA submitted petitions to the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission claiming that Chinese producers injured the domestic industry by selling unfairly low-priced material in the US.
The petitioners alleged antidumping margins of 53.69%-83.24% for Chinese producers and exporters, according to a release from Kelley Drye & Warren, the law firm representing the petitioners.
"Chinese producers have demonstrated their ability to increase rapidly exports to the United States of extremely low-priced [stainless sheet and strip] that undersells domestic producers by substantial margins. In light of the recent trends in pricing and volume of unfair imports, producers and exporters in China are likely to continue their low-priced, high-volume assault on the US market, absent the restraining effects of antidumping and countervailing duty orders," the petition said.
The trade investigation covers all stainless sheet and strip, whether cold-rolled or hot-rolled, according to Kathleen Cannon, attorney at Kelley Drye & Warren and counsel to the petitioners. Cannon said the product scope is the same as the approach from the trade cases pursued in the 1990s.
From those cases, there are still duty orders for stainless sheet and strip from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
This is the first trade case launched against China for stainless sheet and strip. Chinese exports of sheet and strip to the US have increased 133% since 2013, according to a statement from Kelley Drye & Warren.
The US imported 147,183 st of stainless steel sheet and strip from China in 2015, which represented 31.8% of the total 463,291 st of stainless material imported for the year, according to Commerce data.
Chinese material accounted for 81.2% of the total increase in US stainless sheet and strip imports the last three years, the statement said.
Cannon said the subsidies alleged in this case are much like the ones alleged in the ongoing corrosion-resistant sheet and cold-rolled coil trade cases. The preliminary duties in Chinese producers in the corrosion-resistant case were 255.8% and 227.29% in the CRC case because the Chinese companies and government did not cooperate with the investigation. Cannon said it is too soon to tell how involved the Chinese stainless producers will be in fighting this case.
The trade investigation will likely take one year with final determinations from Commerce and the ITC expected in first-quarter 2017, the law firm said.
