The Turkish Steel Exporters’ Association (CIB) is responding with opposition to a number of recent trade cases filed by US steel producers. It is now asking the Turkish government to appeal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) level US import duties imposed on Turkish OCTG in 2014.

In the 2014 case, the US government concluded that Erdemir is a state-controlled business. The CIB believes the WTO process will reveal, however, that Turkey’s largest industrial conglomerate is a private company, just as Canada’s government has concluded in its own trade cases.

The announcement comes just weeks after US pipe and tube producers filed a trade case against heavy-walled rectangular carbon steel pipe and tubes against Turkey, Mexico, and South Korea (see Kallanish 23 July). The CIB is calling the various cases filed over the last several years “… a coordinated campaign to bar Turkish imports and inhibit free and fair trade”.

“The Turkish Steel Exporters’ Association vehemently denies any claims that Turkish steel imports benefit from unfair pricing models”, CIB president Namik Ekinci says in a news release sent to Kallanish by US-based PR firm Grayling. “As a long-time ally of the United States, it is disheartening to see these accusations brought forward, which only aims to complicate and hinder global trade, not improve it. These cases have been opened unfairly, as US steel producers have manipulated trade processes and WTO standards in order to ban exports and impose frequent protectionist rules”, he says.

Turkish steel exports to the US fell in June to 128,955 tonnes -- the lowest monthly level in 11 months, according to a preliminary count by the US government. Import license data suggests, however, a rebound in shipments from Turkey during July to more than 244,000 tonnes -- which would be a 4-month high – on higher shipments of rebar and line pipe.

According to a US Department of Commerce document, all Turkish OCTG producers and exporters are subject to antidumping duties of 35.86%, except for Borusan, which has a 0% rate. OCTG imports from Turkey are also subject to countervailing duties of 2.53-15.89%.