Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world’s largest steel consumer, will impose provisional duties on some U.S. and Russian imports following anti-dumping and subsidy investigations, escalating a trade spat started in September.

Flat-rolled electrical steel products from steelmakers including AK Steel Holding Corp., OAO Novolipetsk Steel and Allegheny Ludlum Corp., would attract duties of as much as 25 percent from tomorrow, China’s commerce ministry said in two statements on its Web site today. The steel is used to make power transformers.

China is striking back after the U.S., the European Union and other countries assessed tariffs and filed complaints about Chinese steel and commodity products to the World Trade Organization this year. U.S. and Russia last year exported a combined $602 million of the targeted steel products to China, according to Mysteel Research Institute.

“Dumping allegations can’t always be made from one side,” Xu Xiangchun, an analyst at Mysteel, said from Beijing. “U.S. and Russian imports have hurt Baosteel Group Corp. and Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, the only two producers of transformer steel in China.”

The tariffs come after U.S. President Barack Obama in a visit to Beijing last month pledged with China President Hu Jintao to work on easing trade frictions. Obama imposed tariffs on Chinese tires in September, and the U.S. later levied duties on some Chinese steel pipes. The two countries have $409 billion in annual two-way trade.

First Probe

Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., the listed unit of Baosteel, fell 1.3 percent to close at 9.12 yuan in Shanghai. Wuhan Iron & Steel Co. gained 3 percent to 8.57 yuan, also in Shanghai.

Richard Buangan, press officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, declined to comment. Calls to the Russian embassy’s press office were answered. Baoshan Steel’s Vice President Chen Ying wasn’t immediately available for comment. Calls to Wuhan Steel were not answered.

AK Steel Chief Executive Officer James L. Wainscott said his company was disappointed by the Chinese investigation’s findings and they “lack any factual or legal basis.” The company will continue to participate in the investigations and expects to appeal any adverse final rulings, he said. Sales to China made up a “relatively small percentage” of electrical steel revenue in 2009, Wainscott said.

Due to the small volume of U.S. imports, China’s move is more like a “parody of a trade dispute,” Michelle Applebaum, who runs a steel research firm in Highland Park, Illinois, said in an e-mail. She said the tonnage involved, 75,000 metric tons, comes to less than a tenth of a percentage point of China’s market.

‘PR Stunt’

“We don’t see this as much more than a PR stunt,” Applebaum said.

U.S. steel products will face two duties, one for subsidies and the other for dumping, the Chinese ministry said in its statement. Russian companies will only pay tariffs for anti- dumping, it said. A final ruling will be decided later, the ministry said, without giving a time frame.

“This is the first time China has conducted an anti- subsidy and anti-dumping investigation,” the ministry said. The imports have hurt the Chinese steel industry, it said.

Disputes between China and its trading partners are escalating as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression spurred countries to protect jobs. China protested U.S. duties of as much as 99 percent on $3.2 billion of Chinese steel pipe exports on Nov. 6, and announced the start of an anti-dumping probe into American carmakers.

The Chinese commerce ministry in October made a preliminary ruling that U.S., European, Russian and Taiwanese chemical companies had dumped nylon fibers at below-cost prices in the Chinese market. Nylon is used to make textiles and toothbrushes.