USITC: Chinese truck tyres materially injure US

The US International Trade Commission filed their remand determinations to the US Court of International Trade on 30 January 2019. By a majority of 3-2, the Commissioners determined:

“Upon consideration of the Court’s remand instructions and the parties’ comments, and based on the record in these remand proceedings, we determine that an industry in the United States is materially injured by reason of subject imports of truck and bus tyres (TBTs) from China that are sold in the United States at less than fair value and subsidized by the government of China.”

The US-based Tire Retread Information Bureau (TRIB) commented: “This is good news for the retread industry, but we still have a ways to go before a final determination is made.”

Moving forward, If the Court issues a final judgement upholding the remand results, the Department of Commerce will issue anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders and start collecting cash deposits on future imports of Chinese truck and bus tyres.  However, there is no fixed deadline on how long this will take and the decision could ultimately be batted back to the USITC whereupon the process would begin again.

The US retread industry has been lobbying for anti-Chinese truck tyre tariffs for at least a year.