WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday set final duties ranging up to 61 percent on hundreds of millions of dollars of copper pipe from China in one of several disputes causing friction between the two countries.

The Commerce Department announcement came one day after Beijing slapped final duties ranging from 50.3 percent to 105.4 percent on chicken parts from the United States.

Action in both cases came as the House of Representatives is considering a bill this week that would treat China's "undervalued" currency as an export subsidy under U.S. trade law, opening the door for more U.S. duties on Chinese goods.
However, both cases were already in progress well before the latest effort in Congress to pressure China to raise the value of its currency against the U.S. dollar.

The Commerce Department also set final duties ranging from 24.89 percent to 31.43 percent on copper pipe and tube from Mexico it said were being "dumped" in the United States at unfairly low prices.

U.S. imports of the copper pipe and tube totaled $233 million from China and $130 million from Mexico in 2009.

The ruling is a victory for U.S. producers Cerro Flow Products Inc, Kobe Wieland Copper Products LLC, Mueller Copper Tube Products Inc, and Mueller Copper Tube Company Inc, which filed a petition one year ago asking for protection against lower-priced imports from the two countries.

The Commerce Department set final anti-dumping duties ranging 11.25 percent to 60.85 percent on Chinese producers and exporters.

Preliminaries duties covering imports from both China and Mexico have been in force since May.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent government agency, could still strike down the duties if it determines that U.S. producers have not been materially injured or threatened with injury by the imports.