The United States ranked third in the number of antidumping and countervailing duty actions taken against South Korean companies this year after China and India, an official source said Thursday.
In a Seoul forum hosted by the trade ministry, Irving Alexander Williamson, commissioner of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), said bigger trading partners often face more investigations in antidumping and countervailing duty cases.
This year through May 24, the U.S. slapped antidumping and countervailing duties in 26 cases, following 156 actions taken against Chinese firms and 33 cases involving Indian businesses, Williamson said.
The ITC is conducting "import injury" investigations in 37 cases that include nine against South Korean products such as ATM machines, semiconductor devices and memory modules, he said.
In 2016, South Korea was the sixth-biggest trading partner of the U.S. after China, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Germany.
In contrast, these countries imposed less antidumping and countervailing duties on U.S. products, with China having engaged in 24 cases of trade restrictions followed by Brazil, India and Mexico, he said.
The ITC was created in 1916 as a non-partisan independent agency. It investigates whether an imported product infringes on a U.S. intellectual property right or is otherwise unfair.