Buchanan Announces New Trade Investigation into Imports of Unfairly Priced Tungsten Shot from The People’s Republic of China

WASHINGTON (July 2024) - On July 10, 2024, Tungsten Parts Wyoming, Inc. (TPW), filed petitions to counter unfair imports that are injuring the American tungsten shot industry. TPW filed the petitions with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) following years of significant volumes of unfairly priced imports of Chinese tungsten shot. The petitions allege that the Chinese industry, which has close ties to China’s military-industrial complex, is dumping certain tungsten shot into the United States, distorting and retarding growth of the U.S. market and resulting in a significant loss of American jobs. The petitions further allege that the Chinese industry is receiving unfair subsidies which further injure the domestic industry.

“The Chinese government and in particular, companies with ties to its defense industry, have been using unfair pricing that is harming American companies and workers,” said Daniel B. Pickard, International Trade and National Security practice group leader at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney and lead counsel for TPW. “It is vital to national security that the U.S. domestic industry stand against these unfair trade practices and ensure that American manufacturing is able to get its feet under it and compete on a level playing field. We will not just sit idly by while yet another American industry is kept from having a fair chance to compete. Trade remedy measures that we hope result from the petitions filed today would give American producers that opportunity.”

Antidumping duties aim to offset the amount a product is sold at less than fair value, or “dumped,” in the United States. The dumping margin is calculated by the Department of Commerce. Estimated duties in the amount of the dumping are collected from importers at the time of importation. Countervailing duties are intended to offset unfair subsidies that a foreign government provides in the production of a particular good. The ITC, an independent agency, determines whether the domestic industry is materially injured, threatened with material injury, or otherwise prevented from becoming established as a result of the unfairly traded imports.

The Department of Commerce will determine whether to initiate the investigations within 20 days of the filing, and the ITC will reach a preliminary determination of material injury or threat of material injury within 45 days. The entire investigative process will take approximately one year, with final determinations of dumping, subsidization, and injury likely occurring in mid-2025. Duties can, however, attach to imports of the subject tungsten shot as of the time of the preliminary determinations in the case.

Led by Pickard, the Buchanan team also includes Claire Webster, Grace Welborn, Caroline Bisk, and Milton Koch.