Anti-dumping Duties
The US Department of Commerce is expected to impose an anti-dumping tariff of 6.89 percent on Korean-made steel products. The US Department of Commerce made a preliminary judgment on cold rolled steel flats from seven countries including Korea, China, Japan and Russia, Reuters reported on February 2 (local time).
The department will levy a 265.79 percent custom duty, the highest, on Chinese steel products, a 71.35 percent custom duty on Japanese products and a 38.93 percent custom duty on Brazilian products. Indian and Russian products will face 6.78 percent and 14.76 percent tariffs, respectively. A 28.03 percent custom duty will be imposed on UK products.
Korean steel products will be subject to 2.17 percent to 6.89 percent tariffs. “The tariffs against Korean products are imposed lower than expected. Korea is the world’s second producer of cold rolled steel flats,” said an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
This is the second time for the US to impose anti-dumping tariffs on foreign-made steel products since December 2015. It is said that US steelmakers’ complaints grew amid a slowdown in the global economy, prompting the department to take the measure.
Since last year, US Steel, New core and Arcelor Mittal and other US steelmakers have urged the Department of Commerce to levy custom duties on foreign-made steel products, claiming that the increase in steel products imported to the US was hurting the US steel industry.
But the International Business Times expected that US steelmakers would express their dissatisfaction since they thought that the new tariffs were still low.
The US Department of Commerce’s final decision will be made this July.