NEW YORK — Domestic tube and pipe producers have urged the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to “vigorously defend” a Commerce Department decision rejecting China’s request to set up a dispute settlement panel at the World Trade Organization (WTO) about subsidy duties on nonmarket economies.

“The law and the agency determinations at issue are not inconsistent with the WTO obligations of the U.S. Rather they speak to the careful efforts of the United States to comply fully with its WTO obligations,” the letter said.
It was filed on behalf of Allied Tube & Conduit Corp., Harvey, Ill.; IPSCO Tubulars Inc., Downers Grove, Ill.; JMC Steel Group, Chicago; Western Tube & Conduit Corp., Long Beach, Calif.; Wheatland Tube Co., Sharon, Pa.; and the United Steelworkers union by Roger Schagrin, an attorney at Washington-based Schagrin Associates and Gilbert Kaplan of Washington-based law firm King & Spalding LLP.

China called for the panel following a decision by President Obama in March that subsidy duties can be applied to nonmarket economies (amm.com, March 13). China has argued this could lead to the imposition of both countervailing and anti-dumping duties on its products imported to the United Sates and therefore double counting.

The letter contends that such “double-counting” has not occurred.

“There is no evidence on the record of these investigations that the imposition of double remedies actually occurred,” the lawyer wrote.

The filers were all petitioners in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of circular-welded carbon-quality steel pipe from China, according to the letter.

China has previously said that the U.S. government has launched more than 30 countervailing duty investigations against its products—including steel pipe, oil country tubular goods and aluminum extrusions—affecting more than $7.3 billion in Chinese goods since 2006 (amm.com, Nov. 30).