In the context of the global economic downturn, countries have adopted trade protectionist measures in order to protect their domestic industries, and trade frictions have occurred frequently.

The iron and steel industry is the basic industry and pillar industry of the national economy and involves the national economy. Therefore, all countries attach great importance to the steel industry, which has led the steel industry to become the “hardest hit” of trade friction. In recent years, the sharp increase in the export volume of stainless steel pipes in China has attracted great attention from all countries in the world, which has directly led to the growing hidden dangers of increased friction between stainless steel pipes in China and internationally.

The main manifestation of trade friction is anti-dumping investigation. Anti-dumping as a tool of protectionism is related to the trade behavior of non-tradable goods of foreign companies. Anti-dumping law is more efficient in terms of anti-dumping to protect domestic enterprises because it points to a specific industry in a particular country, and may even be a specific foreign manufacturer.

Since 2004, China's stainless steel pipe industry has been continuously subjected to anti-dumping investigations from various countries around the world. In 2004, the EU took the lead in launching an anti-dumping investigation on stainless steel fastener products originating in China. In 2005, it officially imposed a final anti-dumping duty on stainless steel fastener products imported from China. In recent years, China has become one of the countries with the most anti-dumping investigations in the world.

According to customs statistics, in 2008, China's stainless steel exports to the United States was 170,000 tons. The United States far surpassed South Korea and the EU-27, ranking first in China's stainless steel exports. In order to protect the domestic stainless steel industry and restrict imports, the United States has adopted a series of trade protectionist measures. Subsidy projects in a countervailing ruling often become evidence of subsequent countervailing against China, triggering more new countervailing cases.

In July 2008, the US Department of Commerce announced a countervailing duty rate of 1.47%-106.85% on stainless steel welded pressure pipes imported from China. At the beginning of 2009, the US Congress passed the “purchase of American goods” clause, which stipulates that projects involving engineering and construction steel can only be purchased from US steel mills. In March of the same year, the US Department of Commerce decided to impose a 10.5%-55.2% anti-dumping duty and a 1.1%-299.2% countervailing duty on stainless steel pipes imported from China.

In August 2013, the US Department of Commerce decided to impose an anti-dumping duty of 27.14% to 76.53% and a countervailing duty of 4.8% to 12.26% on China's stainless steel drawn troughs. A series of anti-dumping measures have gradually reduced the number of stainless steel materials exported from China to the United States, and the proportion of exports has also decreased year by year. As shown in the figure, as of the first half of 2013, the proportion of stainless steel pipes exported from China to the United States has dropped from 18.19% in 2008 to less than 4%.

Not only the EU and the United States frequently filed anti-dumping measures against Chinese stainless steel pipe products, but other countries have also filed anti-dumping investigations on stainless steel pipe products imported from China. In March 2013, the Indonesian government announced an anti-dumping duty of 13.6%-43.5% on CRC imported from China. In July of the same year, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of Vietnam decided to conduct anti-dumping investigations on cold-rolled stainless steel imported from China and Taiwan, and may impose an anti-dumping duty of 20% to 40% on the above-mentioned stainless steel products in the future. The commodities involved in this anti-dumping investigation are cold-rolled stainless steel coils or plates with a carbon content of 1.2% or less and a chromium content of 10.5% or more. On October 4 of the same year, Brazil announced an anti-dumping duty of US$235.59-853.46/ton on stainless steel cold-rolled sheets imported from China. The taxation period is 5 years. In March 2013, Turkey imposed an anti-dumping duty of 13.82% to 25.27% on stainless steel pipe products imported from China. On October 30 of the same year, the Turkish government announced that import tariffs on stainless steel cold coils imported from China, Vietnam and India would be raised from 2% to 8%. According to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, from January to August 2013, Turkey imported 120.248 million tons of stainless steel cold coils from the above countries and regions, while Turkey's stainless steel cold coil imports totaled 243,799 tons.

International trade theory and practice show that trade friction is directly related to the quantity of imports and exports of goods. The substantial increase in the quantity of imports is the most important factor affecting whether importing countries implement trade protection measures. The sharp increase in the export of stainless steel products in China is bound to arouse the vigilance of foreign related industries. Even if there is no dumping behavior, it is easy to cause trade protection measures for importing countries, such as raising import tariffs, imposing anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties.

For a long time, the export competitiveness of China's steel products has been brought about by the advantages of low-cost labor. The establishment of trade barriers such as anti-dumping duties will lead to a substantial increase in the various expenses of China's export products, and the increase in export costs and transaction costs will enable Chinese enterprises to The competitiveness is declining. The international competitiveness of enterprises has been weakened, and exports have been seriously affected. The export situation of stainless steel pipes in China has also been hit hard.