Ohio senators want anti-dumping orders kept in place

Dayton Daily News - Ohio’s senators Wednesday urged the U.S. government to maintain import duties that keep foreign corporations from dumping subsidized products in the U.S. that could kill domestic jobs, including 250 in Kettering.

In a show of bipartisanship, U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman co-signed a letter to the International Trade Commission that said anti-dumping duty orders due to expire must be extended to prevent unfairly traded school paper product imports from China, India and Indonesia.

In Kettering, the duties are linked to 250 jobs with ACCO Brands’ Consumer & Office Products Division, known as Mead Products. The company makes lined paper used by school children, among other prominent consumer products. The current trade orders went into effect in 2006.

Last year, MeadWestvaco Corp. spun off its Kettering-based Consumer & Office Products division to ACCO Brands Corp. to create one of the world’s largest school and office products companies. An ACCO spokesman was not available for comment.

“Ohio’s companies, like Mead Products, can compete with anyone in the world when there is a level playing field,” Brown said. “But the domestic paper industry is being undermined and undercut by illegal trade practices from other countries. Unfairly subsidized imports harm our ability to innovate and compete. That’s why these duties are so important —to support Ohio manufacturing and keep jobs in the U.S.”

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