Buchanan Announces New Trade Remedy Investigation into Imports of Unfairly Priced Slag Pots from The People’s Republic of China

WASHINGTON (December 2024) - On December 31, 2024, WHEMCO-Steel Castings, Inc. (WHEMCO) filed petitions to counter unfairly low-priced imports that are injuring the American slag pot industry. Slag pots are large bowl-shaped vessels typically used to collect high-temperature molten slag from the production of certain liquid metals, such as steel. WHEMCO filed the petitions with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) following significant volumes of unfairly priced imports of slag pots from China. The petitions allege that the Chinese industry is selling slag pots at dumped and subsidized prices, distorting the U.S. market and injuring the American industry and its workers.

“The volume and unfair prices at which we are seeing Chinese slag pots being imported is incredibly concerning for the U.S. industry,” said Daniel B. Pickard, International Trade and National Security practice group leader at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney and lead counsel for WHEMCO. “It is crucial that the domestic industry receive the relief to which it is entitled. The antidumping laws were created for exactly this purpose – to provide a remedy to U.S. companies and their workers that have been injured by unfairly priced imports.”

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. 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 establishment of a domestic industry is materially retarded or if the industry is materially injured 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 near the end of 2025. Duties can, however, attach to imports of the subject slag pots as of the time of the preliminary determinations in the case.

Led by Pickard, the Buchanan team also includes Milton Koch, Grace Welborn, and Brandon Custard.

Buchanan has a team of international trade and national security attorneys, and government relations professionals ready to help U.S. manufacturers with U.S. trade remedy laws and trade policy. U.S. AD/CVD tariff laws are one of the only available tools to reestablish an even playing field for American companies and avoid lost sales and profits. Our eBook, Protecting Domestic Producers: A Guide to Antidumping and Countervailing Investigations, shares details on how diverse domestic industries can take advantage of these laws – antidumping and countervailing duty investigations – to combat unfair foreign competition and ensure that the U.S. market is operating under fair and equal conditions.