China opposes US tariffs on steel pipe

• Source: Global Times
• [02:58 September 11 2009]
• Comments

"We'll suffer great losses as the third-largest exporter of pipelines to the United States," he said.

Zhou Shijian, a counselor at the All China Lawyers Association, said the preliminary duties go against US trade laws as well as WTO regulations.

"The anti-subsidy tariffs are only applicable to a market economy, but the US has not admitted China's market economy status so far," he said. "Also, an amendment to the US anti-subsidy laws raised in 2007 has not been passed yet."

Zhou said the more than 20 percent duty on China-made pipes is an attempt to evict the whole industry from the US market, which is a blow to China, as the United States is the biggest importer of China-made steel pipe.

"The imposed tariff on steel pipe is essentially trade protectionism, which helps to transfer the US' loss in the economic downturn to other countries," he said.

Steel, a "sunset industry" in the US that cannot compete with the products of other countries, is the industry that has sued the largest number of foreign companies for violating trade rules.

In the first four months of 2009, the US steel industry applied 14 times to investigate counter-dumping and counter-subsidies by the Chinese steel industry, according to the First Financial Daily.

"Every time competitiveness is weak, the US will file anti-dumping lawsuits to protect its own industry," the newspaper quoted an unnamed expert as saying.

US Steel rose 2.4 percent to $44.30 on New York Stock Exchange composite trading and has gained 19 percent this year after imports from China abruptly stopped because of the investigation by the US Commerce Department, according to Bloomberg News.

Trade disputes between China and the US have surged amid the global financial crisis, especially since Barack Obama took office last year. Within a week, he will make the final call on whether to impose up to a 55 percent increase in tariffs on Chinese tire imports.

Liang Chen and An Baijie contributed to this story