Antidumping Activity

Antidumping, not what you think.

What do circular welded carbon steel pipes and tube from Taiwan, hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India, and wooden bedroom furniture from China all have in common? They were this week subject to antidumping evaluation by the US Department of Commerce, along with Vietnam frozen fish fillets (catfish) and honey from Argentina.

According to wikipedia, "dumping" can refer to any kind of predatory pricing. "However, the word is now generally used only in the context of international trade law, where dumping is defined as the act of a manufacturer in one country exporting a product to another country at a price which is either below the price it charges in its home market or is below its costs of production. The term has a negative connotation, but advocates of free markets see "dumping" as beneficial for consumers and believe that protectionism to prevent it would have net negative consequences. Advocates for workers and laborers however, believe that safeguarding businesses against predatory practices, such as dumping, help alleviate some of the harsher consequences of free trade between economies at different stages of development (see protectionism)."

Wikipedia goes on to state:

"A standard technical definition of dumping is the act of charging a lower price for a good in a foreign market than one charges for the same good in a domestic market. This is often referred to as selling at less than 'fair value.' Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement, dumping is condemned (but is not prohibited) if it causes or threatens to cause material injury to a domestic industry in the importing country."

Anyway, in the federal register, which I read somewhere is like the newspaper for the US government, they have been listing the results of several administrative reviews this week on the items aforementioned. Basically it appears that the purpose of these adminstrative evaluations is to determine tariff amounts, or assessments on producers of the iterms that could be "dumped" into the US economy.