USITC votes to maintain antidumping duties on non-oriented electrical steel

USITC rules in five-year sunset review on antidumping duties

The USITC conducted a five-year sunset review of antidumping duties on non-oriented electrical steel (NOES). The review covered imports from China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Sweden and Taiwan.
Manufacturers use NOES in such applications as electric generators and motors.
Last week, the USITC said revoking the duties would likely result in “continuation or recurrence of material injury.”
Furthermore, the UISTC opted to maintain existing countervailing duties on imports from China and Taiwan.
Per the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, the Department of Commerce must revoke an antidumping duty or countervailing duty order after five years unless doing so would lead to “continuation or recurrence of dumping or subsidies” and “of material injury … within a reasonably foreseeable time.”
The USITC initiated the review process Nov. 1, 2019.
However, the initial investigation began in 2013 after AK Steel filed petitions with the Department of Commerce and USITC.

GOES Section 232 pending

As we noted earlier this month, Cleveland-Cliffs, which acquired AK Steel earlier this year, expressed optimism that the Trump administration would take Section 232 action related to grain-oriented electrical steel.
Meanwhile, in May, the Department of Commerce launched a Section 232 investigation covering imports of laminations and wound cores for use in transformers, electrical transformers and transformer regulators.
“President Trump’s Administration will be moving forward with a Section 232 action implementing a remedy covering imported laminations and cores of Grain Oriented Electrical Steel (GOES),” Cleveland-Cliffs said in a release dated Nov. 2.
However, the Trump administration has yet to make a formal announcement of action in the investigation.
The United States Trade Representative USTR), however, did announce a preemptive exclusion for Mexican exporters after negotiations on transshipment of GOES materials from outside of North America through Mexico.
Mexico will establish a “strict monitoring regime” for exports of electrical transformer laminations and cores made of non-North American GOES. Per the agreement, Mexico would begin monitoring the shipments this quarter.
AK Steel is the lone U.S. producer of GOES.
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