The US Department of Commerce announced on Wednesday that it would launch an investigation into the import of seamless steel pipes from China, a move that could lead to new duties being imposed and strain already sour trade relations between Washington and Beijing.

The US investigations, which could lead to a 98.7 per cent duty on Chinese steel pipes imports, came shortly after a European Union decision to impose anti-dumping tariffs on the same category of products. (Financial Times)

Although the facts and legal mechanism are different (I think this is an AD case), no doubt that this is going to be seen as a continuation of the same policy that brought us the decision in the tire safeguard case.

Anti-dumping, as a general rule, really blows. And during a recession, it blows even harder.

So the complaint was apparently filed with the U.S. government from both the steel industry as well as the steelworkers union. If you recall, the tire case was basically just the union. So this one had more backing.

Seems like what we have going on here is that once Obama caved to protectionist sentiment on the tire case, we now have additional demands on other imports. What a surprise. The question is when will this end (i.e., when will Obama say that enough is enough, and we do not want to get into a real trade war with China).

By the way, I think someone recently said, regarding the tire case, that we would be seeing additional cases in the near future. Something about opening the flood gates or something? (I am paraphrasing.) — I think it is was Dan Ikenson from Cato. Kudos to him if it was.