In something of a Pyrrhic victory, shipments to the USA, so much reduced over the year as a whole, rose for the first time for six months. At 193,000 tonnes they were not far short of exports to Thailand, and no doubt the increase set off alarm bells among the increasingly import-averse US domestic steelmakers. In fact, reports out of the USA cite CR coil and sheet from Asian mills, Japanese among them, as the next main target for anti-dumping action. Japanese producers will have a feeling of deja vu, but may not be too despairing. Along with mills from 11 other countries they were targets of a series of CR coil anti-dumping action launched in June 1999.Early last year, after months of disruption to trade as the legal process was pursued, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) threw the cases out, ruling that the defendants had caused no serious injury to US mills. Later last year, under the"sunset reviews"that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) requires its members to apply to trade restraints, the ITC rescinded anti-dumping levies against German and Korean mills (among others) dating from much earlier actions.
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