The U.S. Department of Commerce has made affirmative final antidumping (AD) determinations against imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Belarus, Russian and the UAE, a decision that follows a previous one made for seven other countries.

The final AD margins for Belarus was 280.02% as a Belarus-wide entity, the agency reported. For Russia, the margins were 756.93% for Abinsk Electric Steel Works Ltd. and JSC NLMK-Ural, and 436.8% for all others. For the UAE, the margin was 84.1%.

The matter was pressed by four U.S. steel makers—Gerdau Ameristeel US Inc., Nucor Corp., Keystone Consolidated Industries and Charter Steel—what had petitioned the International Trade Commission. Other countries part of the trade case include the Ukraine, South Africa, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Turkey and the U.K. Commerce decided to extend its consideration of steel wire rod imports from South Africa and Ukraine. Determinations on the remaining five countries was scheduled for March 15.

One opponent to the AD duties was the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, which argued at a hearing that Grade 1080 and higher steel wire rod should be excluded from any duties. Domestic steel wire rod suppliers simply cannot meet the volume and quality needs of the U.S. tire manufacturing industry, said Tracey Norberg, USTMA senior vice president and general counsel.

Commerce has instructed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to start collecting AD duties from these producers. Because the agency found critical circumstances in the case of Russia, it has told CBP to collect duties from Russian steel wire rod producers effective 90 days from the publication of preliminary determinations in the Federal Register.