The day after the White House exempted South Korea from its 25 percent steel import tariffs, the U.S. has decided to levy antidumping duties on imports of South Korean carbon and alloy steel wire rods.
Cha Sang-mi reports.
The U.S. Commerce Department is to issue antidumping duty orders on imports of carbon and certain alloy steel wire rods from five countries including South Korea, Spain and Turkey.
The move follows the U.S. International Trade Commission's announcement on Tuesday that it had determined U.S. industry is "materially injured" by these imports.

With such measures, wire rods -- an intermediate steel product -- manufactured by POSCO and other Korean steelmakers will be subject to a 41-point-one percent import duty.
This decision comes less than a day after South Korea was permanently exempted from the United States' 25 percent steel tariffs.

South Korea exported 45-point-six million dollars of wire rods to the U.S. in 2016, the highest of the five countries being investigated.

Experts say although the antidumping measures will not affect Korea's overall exports to the United States by that much, they could be a major problem for some firms, who are likely to push for the tariffs to be lowered.

"The USITC and the Department of Commerce have been making their rulings lately.. and does seem to be calculating things a bit unfairly. Not really according to the standards the WTO had said."

The expert said there is a lot of pressure on the Trump administration because it has been promising to reduce steel imports.
Cha Sang-mi, Arirang News.