Department of Commerce releases findings on nail dumping
The United States Department of Commerce announced Jan. 15 that some Chinese and United Arab Emirates (UAE) manufacturers and exporters sold certain nails in the United States at prices far below “fair value.”
Some Chinese nails were determined to be priced more than 40 percent below fair value; while some UAE nails were found to be priced at more than 4 percent below that value.
As a result of its findings, the Commerce Department will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to collect a cash deposit or bond based on preliminary rates on the nails. The merchandise covered by the investigations are certain steel nails with a length up to 12 inches, with a variety of finishes, heads, shanks, points and sizes.
The largest dumping margins came from Chinese manufacturers. Significant nail-makers include Paslode Fasteners, with a 20.77 percent dumping margin, and Suzhou Xingya Nail, Senco-Xingya Metal Products and Wuxi Chengye Metal Products, which shared a 44.57 percent dumping margin. The “dumping margin” is defined as the percent below “fair value” at which the nails were sold.
The U.S. petitioners for the investigation were Mid Continent Nail; Davis Wire; Gerdau Ameristeel; Maze Nails; Treasure Coast Fasteners; and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union.
“Price discrimination hurts American manufacturers,” said David Spooner, assistant secretary for U.S. Import Administration. “The administration is committed to aggressively enforcing America’s trade remedy laws in order to achieve strong and fair relationships with our trading partners.”
The Commerce Department said it will release a final determination on June 5.
