USW to ITC: U.S. tire makers losing truck, bus tire market share to China

Aggressive underselling, lost market share and declining production all indicate that U.S. truck and bus tire manufacturers are suffering material injury because of imports from China, representatives of the United Steelworkers (USW) union said at a preliminary hearing Feb. 19 at the International Trade Commission (ITC).

However, representatives of the marine intermodal industry said the bias-ply tires they use for intermodal chassis should be exempt from the investigation, because they are not manufactured in the U.S.

The USW filed antidumping and countervailing duty petitions Jan. 29 against Chinese truck and bus tire imports. In their testimony before the ITC, union representatives claimed that despite a 17.4-percent increase in U.S. truck and bus tire demand between 2013 and 2015, U.S. production remained virtually flat during the period because of competition from Chinese imports.

Meanwhile, they said, China has the capacity to produce 150 million truck and bus tires annually — enough to supply the entire world’s demand.

“These unfairly traded imports have taken shipments and market share from domestic producers, deeply undercut prices, and prevented our industry from participating in an extraordinary period of growth in domestic demand,” said Stan Johnson, USW international secretary-treasurer.

“In short, Chinese truck and bus tires have injured the domestic industry, and they threaten further injury if relief is not improved,” Mr. Johnson said.

However, one small branch of the truck and bus tire market — 1000x20 bias-ply tube-type tires on two-part rims, used exclusively on marine intermodal chassis — should not be part of this action, said representatives of the intermodal industry.“These tires have served the chassis leasing industry well, and while this type of tire dominates the marine intermodal chassis market, they have not been manufactured in the U.S. and offered for sale in the U.S. for decades,” said Steven R. Blust, president of the Institute of International Container Lessors.

“There are no known like products manufactured in the U.S. that can be substituted for the bias-ply tube-type design,” Mr. Blust told the ITC. Antidumping and countervailing duties against these tires would unfairly penalize the intermodal industry, he said.

The ITC is expected to vote March 11 on whether to continue the investigation on truck and bus tires. The Feb. 19 hearing occurred just after the ITC voted 6-0 to pursue an antidumping and countervailing duty investigation against off-the-road tires from Sri Lanka and India, but to terminate the same investigation against Chinese OTR tires.