The Bureau of Foreign Trade yesterday confirmed that the US steel industry had requested that the US government impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Taiwanese steel nails.
The bureau said Taipei would watch Washington’s investigation closely and called on local manufacturers to cooperate with the government in preparing for the US’s anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probes.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Mid Continent Steel & Wire Inc said it had made a complaint to both the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission, asking them to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports of steel nails from Taiwan, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Oman, Turkey and Vietnam.
The Poplar Bluff, Missouri-based company said imports of steel nails from these seven countries have materially injured the US steel sector. It also alleged that dozens of foreign government programs are likely to provide unfair subsidies to producers of steel nails in these countries.
The US Department of Commerce is in charge of both anti-dumping and anti-subsidy inquiries, while the US International Trade Commission (ITC) is responsible for looking into the damage incurred by the US steel industry, the bureau said.
The ITC has asked the Taiwanese respondents in the case to answer its questionnaire by June 12, the bureau said.
According to US Customs statistics, steelmakers from the seven countries shipped 255,639 tonnes of steel nails to the US last year, up by nearly 90 percent from 134,821 tonnes in 2011.
Shipments of steel nails from the seven countries accounted for 51.2 percent of all nail imports in the US last year, compared with 30.4 percent in 2011, data showed.
If the US government decides to start an investigation into steel nails, it would be the second probe into the nation’s steel product exports following last year’s probe into non-oriented electrical steel (NOES) products, it added.
On May 16, the US Department of Commerce announced it had set preliminary anti-dumping duties on Taiwanese NOES makers.
Leicong Industry Co (麗鋼) has been ordered to pay an anti-dumping tariff of 52.23 percent, while China Steel Corp (中鋼) and other Taiwanese firms have been ordered to pay a 28.14 percent tariff.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS