Trade commission finds Chinese aluminium wire, cable export harms US industry

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - The US International Trade Commission (ITC) on Wednesday (Nov 20) said it had determined that US industry was materially injured by below-cost imports of aluminium wire and cable from China, locking in US antidumping and countervailing duties.

The US Commerce Department in October said its final determination that Chinese exporters sold aluminium wire and cable at less than fair value in the United States. Such imports from China amounted to US$115 million (S$150 million) in 2018, it said.

The ITC said it would release a public report on its investigation backing the Commerce Department's findings on Jan 6.

In its final determination, Commerce assigned a dumping rate of 58.51 per cent to 63.47 per cent for the wire and cable imports from China.

It assigned a subsidy rate ranging from 33.44 per cent to 165.63 per cent to the Chinese producers.

US producers Encore Wire of Texas and Southwire of Georgia had petitioned for relief from what they described as subsidised imports from China.

The Trump administration has stepped up enforcement of US trade law, focusing heavily on what it calls subsidised imports from China.

In October, it said it had initiated 184 new antidumping and countervailing duty investigations since US President Donald Trump took office, a 235 per cent increase from the comparable period in the previous administration.

The ITC on Tuesday backed Commerce's finding of material injury from mattress imports from China.

The findings come amid strains in efforts by the United States and China - the world's two largest economies - to work out an interim trade agreement before the end of the year.

Completion of a "phase one" US-China trade deal could slide into next year, trade experts and people close to the White House say, as Beijing presses for more extensive tariff rollbacks, and the Trump administration counters with heightened demands of its own.