Circumvention Decision Put Off to Oct. 30

The U.S. government has advised the steel industry that it will delay its preliminary determination on the circumvention trade suit against Vietnam until Oct. 30. The suit alleges Vietnam was assisting China to circumvent the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties assigned to China in 2015/2016. Domestic steelmakers say the U.S. government should no longer recognize “significant transformation,” which is when a steel mill takes a coil and rolls it to make another steel product. In the case of Vietnam, they were converting Chinese hot rolled substrate to cold rolled and/or coated steels, or they were coating cold rolled to coated products (galvanized and Galvalume).

No reason was provided for the delay. Most likely, the media will not be advised on the determination until Tuesday, Oct. 31.