Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017. File photo: Reuters / Thomas Peters

Washington (People's Daily) - US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a preliminary investigation into countervailing duty (CVD) and antidumping duty cases against China.

In what US media reported as a “self-initiating” investigation, US Commerce Department determined China exporters received countervailable subsidies between eight to ten percent.

In 2016, imports of cast iron soil pipe fittings from China reached an estimated $8.6 million.

In November, a statement on the website of China's Ministry of Commerce, Wang Hejun, director of the ministry's Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau, said he hoped the US would stick to the consensus recently reached by the two countries' heads of state on trade and act to promote "healthy and stable" trade relations.

US Commerce Department is scheduled to announce its final CVD decision next spring. If an affirmative determination is made and International Trade Commission (ITC) jury also agrees, then a CVD order will be issued.

If the Commerce Department reaches a negative conclusion or the ITC jury is not in agreement with the findings, then continued investigations will cease.

The Trump administration has made it a priority to enforce US trade laws. After Trump took over at the Oval Office, he appointed Wilbur Ross to lead the Commerce Department.

This year the Commerce Department has initiated roughly 80 antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, a 52 percent increase when compared with the 52 "initiations" launched the previous year.