The US Government are said to be going to investigate Whirlpool’s complaint that producers of large, residential washing machines made in South Korea and Mexico are selling these washing machines below cost to American consumers.
The US Commerce Department has agreed to act on a petition by Whirlpool against the Korean companies LG Electronics and Samsung. The U.S. imported $1.1 billion of the washers from the two nations in 2010, the department said today in a statement.
Whirlpool is seeking “to promote a fair and open global trading system, to protect American jobs, and ensure its ability to continue to innovate and invest in the United States,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.
The USA uses more than 300 anti-dumping and countervailing duties to protect American-made goods, such as honey and bedroom furniture, from global competition deemed by the Commerce Department to be unfair and damaging to U.S. companies.
Whirlpool is requesting US anti-dumping duties on LG and Samsung imports from South Korea and Mexico, saying the products are sold below fair value. Commerce also is considering whether to impose countervailing duties against the Korean products, to offset benefits of government subsidies.
Samsung however denies the allegation by Whirlpool saying that; “Samsung respects the trade rules in the U.S. market, and is confident that the Department of Commerce will confirm that there has been no dumping or subsidization,” Ethan Rasiel, a spokesman for Samsung, said in an e-mail.
When Whirlpool filed its complaint in December, John Taylor, a spokesman for LG, said the company “strongly rejects any suggestion” that it was dumping washers at below-market prices or that it had been unfairly subsidized.
The U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent agency, is scheduled to make a preliminary ruling on whether American producers are hurt by the washing-machine imports in mid-February, according to the Commerce Department statement. The department may make a preliminary decision on the dumping duties in early June.
Both the commission and department could make final decisions on the trade actions later this year, if they find that the imports damage U.S. companies.