ITC rules against domesticcold-rolled sheet firms

By Staff -- Purchasing, 8/10/2000

U.S. steelmakers do not face unfair competition from imports of cold-rolled steel sheet from China, Indonesia, Slovakia and Taiwan, the U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled by a 5-1 vote. The commission had ruled earlier not to impose duties on cold-rolled sheet from Japan, Russia, Brazil and Thailand.

The panel's latest majority ruling says cold-rolled imports from these countries do not materially damage the American steel industry despite Commerce findings that some of the steel was being sold at below fair market prices, as alleged by eight domestic steel companies. Bethlehem Steel Corp., Gulf States Steel, LTV Steel Co., National Steel Corp., Steel Dynamics Inc., U.S. Steel Group, Ispat Inland Steel and Weirton Steel Corp.

Washington steel interests representing these and other major integrated steel companies have attacked the ITC for "an anti-steel bias" in several recent trade rulings against the domestic industry. However, an analysis of ITC votes between 1992 and 1999 shows the panel found in favor of the domestic industry in 114 (55%) of 208 cases filed compared with 68 affirmative rulings (48%) out of 143 cases filed for all non-steel sector cases.

Brink Lindsey, a trade specialist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian tank in Washington, wasn't surprised by the latest cold-rolled decision because the ITC has ruled the same way in related cases. "The commission has different criteria than the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration panel, which votes for American companies 95% of the time."