The Turkish Steel Exporters’ Association (CIB) is seeking a law firm to defend Turkey in the US anti-dumping duty case against heavy-walled rectangular carbon steel pipe and tubes imports from Turkey.

CIB is open for proposals from law firms “… that should be considered as experienced in antidumping and countervailing duties investigations and preferably has a partner in USA,” by 27 July, it says in a statement seen by Kallanish.

On 21 July, nine US pipe and tube producers filed a trade case with the US Department of Commerce (DOC) against imports of heavy-walled rectangular carbon steel pipe and tube from South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey. The group of manufacturers requests the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties (AD and CVD) on the imports (see Kallanish 23 July).

The Turkish steel industry is deeply worried and concerned about such "… unfair investigations", CIB’s chairman Namik Ekinci says in a separate statement regarding the trade case.

Such cases are attempts by producers in importer countries to prevent imports from Turkish steel firms which have significant potential and act in compliance with WTO rules, Ekinci comments. He believes that these cases, opened unjustly and aimed at obtaining results with political lobby pressures, will not discourage the Turkish steel industry and will damage the reputation of the plaintiffs. The use of WTO rules as weapons in economic warfare is worrying and complicates global trade instead of improving it, he says.

Ekinci notes that the Turkish steel industry is against the export of dumped or subsidised products. At the same time, the frequent use of protection measures unfairly and against the free trade rules has the same effect. This harms the local industry, and affects the development of trade relations through restraining the industry from competing in the global market in the long-term, he adds.