Import duties on HR steel to see full expiry review

Four out of five ITC commissioners voted on Oct. 4 to conduct full reviews, according to a notice from the agency. The duties were first put in place in 2001; this is the fourth time they are up for review.

Domestic producers acting as ‘interested parties’ in the review include Nucor, SSAB, Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI), U.S. Steel, AM/NS Calvert, and Cleveland-Cliffs.

The Commission said it didn’t receive any responses from interested parties in China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, or Thailand. Responses from Ukraine were inadequate.

“Notwithstanding the inadequate respondent interested party group responses in each review, the Commission found that other circumstances warranted conducting full reviews,” the ITC said in an explanation of its adequacy determination.

Background

Sunset reviews, conducted every five years, decide if the import duties should continue or be allowed to expire.

In a full review, the ITC will hold a public hearing and issue questionnaires to HR producers, both foreign and domestic.

Full reviews will take longer than expedited reviews as the Commission doesn’t conduct a hearing or investigate further in accelerated reviews. It instead relies solely on facts available from prior reviews and the Commerce Department.

The full sunset review that is the focus of this story concerns ADs on HR imported from China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Ukraine, and CVDs on HR from India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

ITC will determine if removing the duties (i.e. allowing them to ‘sunset’) would be likely to injure the domestic market.

They cover certain HR carbon steel flat products, including high-strength low alloy (HSLA) steel and the substrate for motor lamination steel.

Sunset reviews in recent years

It could be argued that sunset review cases generally result in the continuation of import duties.

But as SMU has mentioned before, it’s become a trend in recent years to see the removal of duties on Brazilian steel while simultaneously upholding duties on the same imports from other countries.

In 2022, the ITC voted to allow duties to expire on Brazilian HR coil and cold-rolled coil. And in 2023, duties were allowed to expire on Brazilian cut-to-length plate and welded pipe.

In the review of duties on HRC finalized two years ago, ADs and CVDs on Brazilian product were allowed to expire. At the same time, the ITC voted to continue the duties on HR steel from Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Russia.