Commerce set countervailing duty deposits on Korean steel plate at 1.89% for Dongkuk and 1.39% for Hyundai Steel

01 / The new rates

Dongkuk's deposit fell 0.32 points and Hyundai Steel's rose 0.08 points

Plate from any other Korean producer or exporter keeps the all-others rate of 3.26%, the rate set in the original investigation behind the February 2000 order. Where a producer and an exporter each have their own rate and the two differ, the notice says Customs collects the higher one. A rate under 0.50% is de minimis, the legal term for too small to count, and draws no deposit.

Commerce's notice lists the questions the companies and other parties argued over. They include whether Korea's government supplied electricity to the mills for less than adequate pay, whether the emissions permits it provides under the Korea Emissions Trading System count as a subsidy, and whether a carbon-neutral facilities grant and certain research grants are countervailable.

Commerce made no changes to its calculations for either company between the May preliminary results and the final ones.

02 / Eight years of rates

Five of the eight results from 2017 through 2020 were de minimis

From 2017 through 2020, the rates for both mills were small. Five of the eight results in those years were de minimis, and the highest was 0.56% for 2019. The review of 2021 put both companies at 1.08%. Hyundai Steel reached 2.21% for 2022 and Dongkuk reached 2.21% for 2023. Each review covers a calendar year, and the final results for 2024 came 22 months after that year ended.

03 / Korea's place in U.S. plate imports

Korea supplied 49.8% of U.S. plate imports in the first eight months of 2026

South Korea is the largest foreign source of the plate that enters under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 7208.51 and 7208.52, flat-rolled steel not in coils and 4.75 mm or thicker. Those two subheadings are among those Commerce lists for the order. From January through August 2026, the United States imported 86,105 metric tons from Korea under them, according to Census Bureau trade data, 49.8% of the 172,996 tons from all countries. Canada supplied 31.7% and Brazil 9.6%.

Imports from Korea held between 187,600 and 204,800 tons a year from 2017 through 2024, except for 67,000 tons in 2020. They fell 34.4% in 2025, the year the Section 232 duty on steel rose to 50%. In the first eight months of 2026, imports from Korea were 25.3% below the same months of 2025, and imports from all countries were 27.6% below.

The customs value of Korean plate, which is the price before U.S. duties, freight and insurance, averaged $837 a metric ton in 2025 and $882 from January through August 2026, against $1,373 in 2022.

04 / Domestic plate prices

The price index for hot rolled bars, plates and shapes rose 15.0% in a year

The Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price index for hot rolled steel bars, plates and structural shapes stood at 319.693 in September 2026 (June 1982 = 100). A producer price index tracks the prices U.S. producers receive. The index rose 3.0% from August and 15.0% from September 2025, and it is the highest since September 2022.

BLS does not seasonally adjust this series, and it no longer publishes a separate index for carbon plate alone.

05 / The separate 2017 plate order

POSCO's amended 2021 rate under the 2017 order is 0.80%, down from 0.87%

Korean plate also falls under a second set of orders from 2017, on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate. On November 6, Commerce published an amended 2021 subsidy rate of 0.80% for POSCO Co., Ltd. under that order, down from 0.87%, after the U.S. Court of International Trade sustained the recalculation on October 27. The notice says POSCO's current cash deposit rate stays as it is, because a later review has already replaced the 2021 rate. The court ruling is open to appeal. Source: Commerce, notice of amended final results.

06 / How the duties stack

A shipment of Korean plate can owe the 50% Section 232 duty and both deposits

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 lets the president adjust imports that threaten national security. Proclamation 10947 raised the Section 232 duty on steel to 50% from 25% from June 4, 2025. Proclamation 11021 set the rate at 50% for steel articles listed in its Annex I-A from April 6, 2026, with lower rates for some United Kingdom steel, and applied the duty to the full customs value.

A shipment of Korean plate can owe the Section 232 duty, the countervailing duty deposit and the deposit under the antidumping order that the 2023 notice also continued. The orders continue until a five-year review ends them.

In the 2023 continuation notice, Commerce said it intends to open the next review no later than 30 days before the fifth anniversary of the International Trade Commission's 2023 determination, which the commission published on August 28, 2023.