The US International Trade Commission (ITC), a federal agency that investigates whether or not, and to what extent, an unfair trade practice harms US businesses, voted earlier this year against imposing tariffs on low-price Chinese truck tyres being dumped in the country despite the US Department of Commerce’s findings last year supporting the tariffs.
Marangoni Tread North America, after networking with other companies in the retread industry in the US, researched the issue and is now leading an online petition asking President Trump to fill the vacant seat on the six-member International Trade Commission.One of the commission’s members, Dean Pinkert, recused himself from the truck tyre investigation last year, and has since vacated his seat on the board.
The company said if the petition gets 100,000 signatures by June 25, the White House will review it and provide a response.
Marangoni, which says it created the petition “on behalf of all of us that are in retreading and related industries” believes Pinkert’s absence “undoubtedly impacted the final determination.” The resulting vote was 3-2 against tariffs. If Pinkert had voted as he had previously, for tariffs, the result would have been a tie and that would have meant the tariffs would have been imposed, according to Marangoni.
The vote came as a major surprise to the industry following a Commerce Department investigation that determined there was a problem. In its preliminary determination last June, the Commerce Department said it found that commercial truck and bus tyres imported from China are benefitting from subsidies from the Chinese government.
Bill Sweatman, president and CEO of Marangoni Tread North America, said in an interview that the whole industry was led to believe that the ITC ruling would be in favor of the tariffs and duties. So when the vote results earlier this year came out, it was a surprise for them.
The Marangoni petition says more than 60,000 US jobs in the retreading and related industries are threatened as a result of the February 22 ITC ruling and also notes the environmental benefits of retreading.
As Sweatman said, “retreading has an economic as well as an environmental positive impact. The real cheap, three-belt, non-retreadable Chinese truck tyres are impacting both the economy as well as the environment.”
The problem is that some fleets will buy the low-price Chinese tyres, which generally do not have high-quality casings that are retreadable, rather than buying high-quality tyres and retreading them.
“If you don’t have a good retreadable casing, then those tyres become one-time-use tyres that have to be disposed of,”Sweatman explained. “Economically and environmentally, that is the wrong thing to do.”
“We ask trucking fleets to compare the cost after running the [cheap Chinese] product,” he added. Many of them have returned to premium new tyres that are retreadable. We think in the long term that the market is going to reject these tyres from China that are less quality.”
He noted that Marangoni and the rest of the retreading industry are not asking or expecting the government to give the retreading industry favourable treatment, but simply are seeking “fair, free trade.”
“We’re all about fair trade, but those tyres are coming in here at less than fair value.”
“The president could not overturn the decision,” explained Ron Elliott, marketing and communications manager for the retread company, “but the appeal is to go back and have it before the commission with all six members instead of the original five. We want to create enough buzz that it will get to the White House to alert the president that this is a huge problem. It not only directly affects 60,000 jobs, but there’s also a trickle effect of upwards of 200,000.”