Unfairly traded truck and bus tires from China will now be subject to antidumping duties.
The Commerce Department on Monday released a preliminary determination that China has been dumping truck and bus tires into the U.S. market, a big step forward for U.S. tire makers and workers who have watched as unfair imports have snatched up market share during a time of robust growth.
Shipments of more than 9 million truck tires from China, valued at more than $1 billion in 2015, will be subject to the new duties. Commerce issued antidumping duties against several Chinese companies, ranging from 20.87 percent to 22.57 percent. The department in June issued preliminary countervailing duty margins from 17.06 to 23.38 percent, meaning some companies will face total margins of more than 40 percent.
The United Steelworkers’ (USW) national rubber tire bargaining conference filed the petition in January.
After Monday’s determination, USW International President Leo Gerard said unfair Chinese imports have been grabbing market share over the last three years at the expense of American producers and workers. Chinese truck tire imports alone have grown from 6.3 million in 2012 to 8.9 million in 2015, with an increased share of consumption of more than 36 percent by 2014.
And it’s not the first time that China has dumped tires into the U.S. market, as USW International Secretary-Treasurer Stan Johnson noted:
“We have fought back against China’s predatory trade practices in nearly every part of the tire industry, including tires for passenger cars, light trucks, off-road vehicles, and now truck and bus tires. Again and again China has been shown to benefit from massive subsidies and to engage in widespread dumping in order to gain market share at the expense of American jobs.”
Johnson is right — the fight against unfairly traded tires from China has been going on for years. In fact, the International Trade Commission (ITC) gave the green light back in 2009 to impose strict restrictions on specific passenger vehicle and light truck tire imports from China after finding that significant trade cheating had taken place.
It was a major decision. Duties of 35 percent were issued; China appealed the move to the World Trade Organization and lost. But the decision to take action against China’s trade cheating paid off, as the Alliance for American Manufacturing noted in a special report.
From the six-month time period before the decision to the six-month time period afterward, U.S. tire making grew by 15 percent. In Ohio and Arkansas, Cooper Tire hired 350 new workers. Goodyear plants producing the tires involved in the case hired 130 new employees, who worked an average 20 percent overtime.
But the fight against unfairly traded tires continues, as this latest trade case shows.
The Commerce Department is scheduled to issue its final determination by Jan. 17, 2017, and the ITC will follow with its own by March 3.