The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced a negative preliminary determination for anti-dumping (AD) duties on new pneumatic off-the-road tyres (OTR) from India in a petition filed earlier this year by the United Steelworkers (USW) and Titan International, Inc.
According to findings, ATC Tires Private Ltd. and Balkrishna Industries Limited (BKT) have not sold tyres in the US at less than fair value.
No dumping margin has been established and no cash deposits have been collected by the DOC at this time because of the negative preliminary determination.
The investigation by the DOC on OTR tyres from India, Sri Lanka and China started in early February. Later that month, the International Trade Commission (ITC) dropped its investigation into Chinese OTR tyres.
The DOC is scheduled to announce its final anti-dumping determination on or around Jan. 4, 2017, and the ITC is scheduled to make its final injury determination in February 2017.
The USW is dissatisfied with the current ruling. “The USW was disappointed in the preliminary results announced Friday by the USDOC. Petitioners have raised a number of important issues in advance of the preliminary comments,” said Leo Gerard, International President of USW.
He also added that they will have to wait for the disclosure materials to be provided to their trade counsel to determine if those issues were addressed in the preliminary or not.
“Our members have suffered harm from OTR imports. The USW will be looking to the Commerce Department to address all issues raised by petitioners in their final to ensure that any dumping is in fact addressed and offset.”
If the DOC and ITC make a positive final determination that imports of certain new pneumatic off-the-road tyres from India materially injure or threaten material injury to the domestic market, an anti-dumping order could still be put in place. If both of the parties find the final determination to be negative, an anti-dumping order will not be issued.
In June, the DOC released its preliminary determinations in the countervailing duty investigations of imports of certain new pneumatic OTR tyres from India and Sri Lanka. A final determination is set for October 2016.