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Plywood group files unfair trade petition

2K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  FirehouseWoodworking 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Plywood group files unfair trade petition

Posted on Wednesday, 03 October 2012 17:08

Original Article, in case link goes bad:

The Coalition for Fair Trade of Hardwood Plywood, an association of U.S. manufacturers of hardwood and decorative plywood, announced the filing of an unfair trade petition regarding imports of the product from China.

The petition, filed with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission, asserts that imports of the product are sold in the United States at dumped prices and are subsidized by the government of China, according to the association.

The petition also asserts that U.S. manufacturers of hardwood and decorative plywood have suffered material competitive injury as a result of these unfair trade practices and that the industry continues to be threatened by further injury by reason of the Chinese imports. The petition requests that the U.S. government investigate these unfair trade practices and their harmful impact on this domestic manufacturing industry and to apply antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of hardwood plywood from China in order to restore competitive parity in the U.S. market.

"China has dumped products into the U.S. market at prices that are well below fair value," association counsel Jeff Levin said in a statement. "Furthermore, Chinese manufacturers receive an array of government subsidies, including their access to raw materials - logs and timber - that come from suspect or illicit sources. All of these factors equate to an enormous unfair advantage for Chinese manufacturers and injure the entire domestic hardwood flooring industry."
 
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#2 ·
Interesting story.
I almost never buy Chinese plywood (but I do like Chinese food).
I have been purchasing some fairly good quality ply from Brazil (south America) at big box stores (very reasonable price)
Of course my favorite is baltic birch and "fin-form" which I believe come from eastern Europe / Nethernalds and this is purchased from my local hardwood lumber yard so at least some of the $ is staying local.
 
#3 ·
Of course it is right that US manufacturers should complain about Chinese plywood flooding the market. Jeez, if the veneer was any thinner, it would be transparent. BUT!!! Hold onto your wallets, folks! Once any kind of action, tariffs, etc, or other market controls are implemented, you can bet that North American sheetgoods will jump astronomically in price.
 
#4 ·
Interesting this should come up today. Just yesterday I found a new place local to me that sells a variety of sheet goods. I talked to the owner for a bit and one of the things he mentioned was that no one can compete in this business unless they're buying Chinese products…they are just to cheap. He carried a number of Chinese ply's, as well as baltic birch and a couple domestic ply's.
 
#5 ·
A former co-worker whose wife was involved with international trade says chinas been doing this for years with alot of different products. Supposedly theyve were buying whordes of paper when it was naturally cheap with plans to dump it on the market at a later time forcing American paper companies to go out of business. Then you will see the chinese paper go to a normalized price….but with little or no competition!

America needs to equalize the playing field….weve just been spoiled with cheap goods. I pay more for American made work boots. Most my tools are either American made or from a country with Labor and environmental policies close to the US's policies.

Obama and Romney cant fix the economy…not while the American people are allowing countries like China sabbotage our fair markets!

Fix the economy. BUY AMERICAN

Im done with the soapbox now…...whos up next?
 
#6 ·
IsaacH

"Obama and Romney cant fix the economy…not while the American people are allowing countries like China sabbotage our fair markets!"

I think, during the last debate, I heard Romney make a brief comment on "Handling China when they don't play fair… keeping a level playing field" which sounded good to me… Yes, China has been undercutting our Companies for years… and our companies have been having their products made in China so they can compete too… BUT when China, or any other country, purposely Goes to a Price War to drive our companies out of business (steal), that action must be quickly STOPPED by taxing China to "Level the field" and thus save our companies from being forced out of business. And to really be fair, those taxes should be used to help the companies that have been effected by the previous actions… but they probably NOT do that… they would waste it on something else… LOL

Of course the prices will go up… we can't have it all… LOL…

And hopefully our companies would not be able to Overly take advantage of it by raising their prices to corner the markets, knowing that China could NOT beat their prices… That might be a problem TOO.
 
#8 ·
The technology used to make this nearly transparent veneer was developed in the U.S. but consumers did not like it. It was picked up by the Pacific RIM countries and China.

It is nearly worthless and probably as bad as the gypsum sheet rock that proved to be a long term health problem.

I think that buy American is the best choice even though it is getting more and more difficult.
 
#9 ·
It's interesting because I was in my local Home Depot last night and I happened to notice the the price on 3/4 inch "Sandply" (Chinese stuff) plywood was $43 and change per sheet while 3/4 inch Birch (stamped American made) was only $41 and change per sheet.

The Birch looked like a much nicer product. The faces was much better. Couldn't tell anything about the plies by looking at the edges.

I was just shocked that the Sandply was more expensive than the Birch. I was hoping that perhaps tariffs were working. Anyway, my two cents.

Cheers.
 
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