AK Steel Holding Corporation (NYSE:AKS) has affirmed its support to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)’s unanimous determination on the unfair importation of steel from China. In its determination, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) said U.S’s steel industry has been hurt materially from unfair importation of stainless steel sheet and strip from China.
Following the determination, the U.S. Department of Commerce will proceed to institute unfair trade orders for all steel imports from China to be charged antidumping duties of 63.86% to 76.64% and countervailing duties of 75.60% to 190.71%.
AK Steel Chief Executive Officer Roger K. Newport said the company is pleased by the determination by the International Trade Commission (ITC)’s the unfair importation of steel products from China is hurting the U.S steel industry. “We applaud the work of our U.S. government and trade officials to help counteract the injury being caused by dumped and subsidized imports, and drive fair competition in the marketplace,” he said.
International Trade Commission (ITC)’s determination successfully concludes countervailing and antidumping investigations that were instituted after AK Steel together with a number of steel companies filed a petition in February 2016. Among the companies that filed the petition with AK Steel are North American Stainless, ATI Flat Rolled Products, an Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:ATI), and Outokumpu Stainless USA, LLC.
Stainless steel sheet and strip imports from China recorded a 133% increase between 2013 and 2015, reducing from the United States market after the trade petition was filed. Before that, China was U.S’s largest supplier of steel in 2015. Steel imports from China accounted for half of U.S’s to steel imports.
AK Steel is one of the U.S’s leading producers of stainless and electrical steel products, flat-rolled carbon mainly for infrastructure; automotive and manufacturing, electrical power generation and distribution markets. With its headquarters in West Chester, Ohio, AK Steel has a workforce of 8,500 men and women distributed to steel plants, tube manufacturing plants, and two coke plants in six states i.e. Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The company also operates one tube plant in Mexico
