WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Commerce has adjusted its antidumping duty findings for off-the-road tires imported from India, raising them from de minimis to 3.67 percent.
Titan Tire Corp. and the United Steelworkers union filed petitions with the International Trade Commission in January 2016, seeking antidumping and countervailing duty relief against Indian and Sri Lankan OTR tire imports under Sections 701 and 731 of the Trade Act.
In its final antidumping and countervailing duty determinations issued Jan. 4, 2017, the Commerce Department found no evidence of dumping against Indian OTR tire importers. The agency did issue countervailing duty rates of 5.36 percent against Balkrishna Industries Ltd., 4.9 percent against ATC Tires Private Ltd. and 5.06 percent against all others.
Commerce also levied countervailing duties of 2.18 percent against Sri Lankan OTR tire producers. Sri Lankan companies were not investigated for dumping.
Titan and the USW petitioned Commerce on Jan. 17, 2017, alleging the agency had made ministerial errors in determining the Indian OTR antidumping rate. Those errors were related to the application of partial adverse facts available (AFA), the petitioners said.
Reviewing its decision, Commerce did not find errors related to AFA, but did find errors with respect to ATC's freight expenses, home market credit expenses and U.S. indirect selling expenses, the agency said in a Feb. 2 Federal Register notice.
In light of this, Commerce issued a revised 3.67-percent antidumping rate against ATC, and applied the same rate to all other Indian OTR importers.
The ITC is scheduled to vote Feb. 17 on whether Indian and Sri Lankan OTR tire imports caused material injury to the U.S. OTR tire industry. If the vote is affirmative, the countervailing and antidumping duties will become official.
The Federal Register notice can be found here.