Dump The Dumping Laws

Right now, an old friend of mine is awash with paperwork. He works for a company in the Midwest, importing steel from China. Last month his firm received a notice from the Department of Commerce (which insists on call itself "the Department" while abbreviating virtually everything else). They received a petition that my friend's firm (along with several others) are importing at an unfair price. An investigation is now underway.

First the department required that they spend dozens of hours filling out forms that summarize the company's activities with China (which basically means all their business). Then the department used that information and did acomparison study with India to determine their prices were "too low." The report reads why this is a problem:

The Petitioners contend that the industry's injured condition is illustrated by reduced market share, lost sales, reduced production, reduced capacity utilization rate, reduced shipments, underselling and price depressing and suppressing effects, lost revenue, reduced employment, decline in financial performance, and an increase in import penetration.

These are better known as the effects of competition.

The importer must now spend hundreds of man-hours demonstrating they operate in a free market or be hit with massive fines. People often complain that in an unregulated free market, corporations will set prices too high. Strangely, they now
argue that prices are too low because this company isn't in that same uncontrolled environment.