Industry comments on negative injury determination on tin mill product imports
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The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has unanimously voted not to impose duties on imported tin mill steel from Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, or the United Kingdom.
The ITC investigation was requested last year by Ohio steel giant Cleveland-Cliffs, who claimed these eight countries were illegally “dumping” tin mill exports in the United States. Cleveland-Cliffs requested duties of up to 300% — which if imposed would have put nearly 40,000 domestic manufacturing jobs at risk and raised the price of canned goods by as much as 30%.
“Today’s result confirms what we’ve known all along — there was no merit to Cleveland-Cliffs’ claims. The ITC not only voted today to protect thousands of American manufacturing jobs, but to preserve the integrity of our country’s trade remedy process,” said David Chavern, president and CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, in a statement.
The Can Manufacturers Institute’s steel can manufacturer members have also commended the ITC for agreeing with the industry’s position that Cleveland-Cliffs and other domestic steel producers are not injured or threatened with injury by imported tin mill products (TMP).
CMI’s study in 2023, the testimony of CMI members at the ITC hearing, and CMI’s subsequent post-hearing brief all affirmed that CLFs was not injured by subject imports:
- CLFs does not produce the TMP specifications required for advanced, high-speed two-piece can production, which is a large and growing part of the can market.
- During the period of investigation, CLF only produced TMP for the three-piece can market, which accounts for just 34% of total US steel can production.
- Even in that small three-piece can market, CLFs in 2022 could supply only 64% of the volumes requested by steel can makers and delivered only 15% of that volume on time.
The potential antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) rates had been determined by the US Department of Commerce on 5 January 2024. The Commerce Department found that imports from the Netherlands, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom and most imports from South Korea were not being dumped, which terminated the investigations on TMP imports from those sources. The Commerce Department assigned single-digit dumping margins on TMP imports from Canada, Germany, and certain South Korean producers, and very high AD/CVD rates on imports from China. However, as a result of the ITC’s negative injury determination, no AD/CVD duties will be imposed on TMP imports from any of the investigated countries.