CHARLOTTE — In a trade victory against the People’s Republic of China, North Carolina’s Charlotte Pipe and Foundry won an anti-dumping case Monday when the International Trade Commission (ITC) voted unanimously that China was dumping cast iron fittings on the market at between 22 and 360 percent less than fair market value.
Charlotte Pipe and the Cast Iron Soil Pipe Institute (CISPI) filed a petition against imports of cast iron soil pipe fittings from the People’s Republic of China in July 2017, launching an investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Investigators determined that Chinese exporters had not only flooded the U.S. market with underpriced cast iron soil pipe fittings, called “dumping,” China provides countervailable subsidies to its producers of cast iron soil pipe fittings at rates ranging from 7 to 134 percent. According to the ITC, penalties to counteract the trade practices will go into effect immediately.
“We are thrilled with winning this case so that we can protect American jobs against unfair trade practices,” said Roddey Dowd, Jr., CEO of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry. “We finally have a presidential administration in Washington that is serious about enforcing existing U.S. trade law. For my entire career at Charlotte Pipe, we have had presidents of both parties ignore the brazen cheating from the Chinese. Those days are over.”
Charlotte Pipe and Foundry employs more than 1,400 people and has operated in the Charlotte area for more than 117 years. It is among the manufacturers that have been calling on Washington for years to enforce the unethical trade practices from China. The Trump administration has led the charge recently to impose steep duties in fines on underpriced materials coming from China, the world’s largest producer of metal products. In July, a Chinese aluminum foil maker filed a lawsuit against the U.S. after unsuccessfully filing a “no injury” claim with the ITC Commission last year as Washington probed whether the companies were unfairly subsidized.