US sets hefty final duties on China steel pipe

Chinese Oil-Well Pipe Makers Face U.S. Tariffs of 30% to 99%. The U.S. Commerce Department approved duties of about 30 percent and 99 percent on imports of Chinese steel pipes used in oil and gas wells, acting on a complaint by American producers including U.S. Steel Corp. The final ruling affects $1.1 billion of annual imports, the U.S. said in a statement yesterday. Thirty-eight companies including Tianjin Pipe International Economic and Trading Corp. must pay a 29.94 percent rate, while Jiangsu Changbao Steel Tube Co. and remaining producers are charged 99.14 percent. The case now goes back to the U.S. International Trade Commission for a final determination on the damage to domestic companies from Chinese competitors dumping their products in the U.S. at below-market prices. Importers must deposit the duty amounts while they await that decision. “China’s government and exporters are being told we are fed up with their cheating on our fair trade laws and penalties for these transgressions are long overdue,” United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard said in a statement after the decision. His labor union was part of the complaint. Imports from China of the pipes, known as oil country tubular goods, more than tripled to $2.6 billion in 2008 from $750 million a year earlier, as gasoline prices soared and companies rushed to drill new wells. Imports fell to $1.1 billion in 2009 after oil prices dropped and preliminary duties were imposed on the products. Market-Based Yuan The latest grievance is the largest dumping complaint filed in the U.S. against imports from China, and follows a year in which China faced a record number of such cases from nations worldwide, according to the World Bank. China is also under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to raise the value of its currency, the yuan, and eliminate barriers to commerce and investment. The Chinese currency “should be market based; it should be allowed to float,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in an interview in New York yesterday. In addition, U.S. companies are increasingly concerned at the lack of a “level playing field” for goods in China, he said. Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, didn’t return telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment on today’s ruling. China is the second-biggest trading partner for the U.S. after Canada, and ran up a $226.8 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year, more than the combined deficit the U.S. had with its next nine biggest trading partners, according to Commerce Department data. The pipe case was brought by the United Steelworkers; U.S. Steel, the largest U.S.-based steelmaker; U.S. operations of Evraz Group SA, Russia’s second-largest mill; and Pennsylvania- based Wheatland Tube Co. A countervailing duty case, used to counter subsidies to foreign suppliers, is running in parallel to this case, and final decisions in both cases are scheduled this year.