The Department of Commerce (DOC) has agreed to extend the deadline to make its preliminary determination of whether off-the-road tires from India and Sri Lanka are benefitting from subsidies by those foreign governments.
In a notice to be published in the Feb. 25, 2016, Federal Register, the DOC says the petitioners in the case have asked for the maximum postponement. Instead of making its preliminary ruling 65 days after the start of the DOC investigation (Feb. 3 ) the agency will double the timeline. The preliminary ruling will be handed down June 13, 2016. (Originally, the ruling would have come April 8.)
A final determination will come 75 days later.
Titan Tire Corp. and the United Steelworkers based their request for the extension on the “number and nature of subsidy programs under investigation.” They petitioners “believe that the normal 65-day deadline for preliminary determinations in countervailing duty investigations would not provide sufficient time for the Department to adequately examine the amount of subsidies that producers of subject merchandise in India receive.”
Titan and the United Steelworkers are seeking tariffs on OTR tires from India and Sri Lanka. The two parties also had sought protection from mounted OTR tires imported from China, but on Feb. 19 the International Trade Commission dropped its investigation of mounted OTR tires from China. The investigations of imports from India and Sri Lanka will continue.
