U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Feb. 19 to initiate anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe against truck and bus tires imported from China.
Surge in Export Volume in March
After the Spring Festival holiday, China’s tire companies said the orders for exports were ok. As the production and supply of tire producers kept stable, the volume of export orders rebounded considerably.
When the news that U.S. is to impose anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariff on all-steel tires imported from China, while tire companies in China gave priority in supplying tires to the U.S. market, they enhanced exploiting markets in other countries.
Therefore, the volume of tire exports surged in March.
U.S. DOC announced again on May 27 to move the preliminary anti-dumping duty determination on truck and bus tires imported from China back 50 days from Apr. 25 to Jun. 27.
In the U.S. market, truck and bus tires imported from China account for 20%-30% of the total, showing an obvious advantage of China’s products.
Decline in Exports Unavoidable
As the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariff will be imposed on tires from China soon, the sales volume of tires from China in the U.S. market is to be impacted.
Most tire companies said if the tariffs are too high, they will reduce the export volume or stop exporting tires to the U.S..
Although companies affected have increased the export volume to non-American countries, but the overall export volume to the rest of the top 10 export destinations is less than a half of the volume to the U.S..
As a result, even if China’s tire exports to other countries have increased, it can hardly offset the negative impact from the U.S. market.
Export volume decline in all-steel tires later will be unavoidable. Tire producers have been mitigating the changes in export volume while trying hard in maintaining their share in export destinations.
As the exports decline, capacity utilization of tire producers will go down steadily.
