U.S. industries strongly opposed to tariffs against Chinese pipe imports

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. industries Thursday expressed strong dissatisfaction with a U.S. decision to impose preliminary duties on imports of China-made steel pipes, saying such a protectionist move would hurt U.S. companies.

The trade restrictions would "hurt U.S. using industries by raising their costs and making sources of supply uncertain," Eugene Patrone, executive director of the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) told Xinhua.

He noted that the tariffs would make oil and gas exploration and production more expensive and delay projects, "which is against our national goal of being less dependent on imported energy."

The U.S. Commerce Department issued a preliminary decision on Wednesday to impose duties ranging from 10.9 percent to 30.6 percent on steel pipe imports from China. The Commerce charged that China is unfairly subsidizing exports of the 2.6 billion dollar oil country tubular goods, which are used for oil and gas wells.

"There are already more new cases under the anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws in the U.S. this year than all of 2008. Most of these new cases involve Chinese products," said Patrone.

"CITAC believes the trade laws are too protectionist and fail to consider the impact on downstream industries," he added.

China also strongly opposed the U.S. decision, saying that it is a protectionist move.

"China expressed strong dissatisfaction and is resolutely opposed to this," said China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) spokesman Yao Jian in a statement.

"This does not comply with WTO agreements on subsidies. The U.S. used an incorrect method to define and calculate the subsidies, which has resulted in an artificially high subsidy rate, hurting Chinese firms' interests," said Yao.

The tariffs go into effect immediately, but since the finding is preliminary, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials will collect cash deposits or bonds. If the preliminary finding is not upheld, the money will be returned, according to The Washington Post.

The onset of the global recession appears to have set off an increase in trade disputes around the world.

Globally, new requests for protection from imports in the first half of 2009 are up 18.5 percent over the first half of 2008, according to the World Bank-sponsored Global Anti-dumping Database organized by Chad P. Bown, a Brandeis University economics professor.

That increase follows a 44 percent increase in new investigations in 2008.

And China has become the main target of the rising protectionism.

"We're worried about increasing costs for people using these products," said Lewis Lebowitz, counsel to the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition.

"It's by far the largest trade case that has been filed against China so far. There's just a lot of cases now that are filed against China," he said.

"China is the number one target of these duties and anti-dumping measures and the primary reason is that China is very competitive," said Edwin Vermulst, a trade lawyer with Vermulst Verhaeghe Graafsma & Bronkers.