Prinx Chengshan Tire North America Inc. — and the company’s tire dealers — may feel like they’re suffering from whiplash when considering the back-and-forth of this year’s investigation of truck and bus tires from Thailand.
In May, a preliminary ruling by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) seemed to indicate the tiremaker would avoid the weight — and cost — of tariffs on its truck tires imported into the U.S. from Thailand.
Then just five months later, the DOC reversed course in its final ruling. The TBR tires Prinx Chengshan imported into the U.S. — it sells under both the Prinx and Fortune brands — would be subject to tariffs afterall — at a rate of 12.33%.
Samuel Felberbaum, president of the company’s North American operations, told MTD, “We’re disappointed with the ruling.”
While the tiremaker’s attorneys review the findings, Felberbaum said the company is preparing to begin paying the tariff — though also holding out hope that the International Trade Commission (ITC), the second agency that has a role in tariff investigations and decisions — might ultimately rule that the domestic truck tire market (companies who produce medium truck tires in the U.S.) isn’t being injured by the imported products.
“Ultimately, I believe compared to those countries that do not have any anti-dumping duties, we will be higher (in price) in the marketplace. That’s just a fact,” Felberbaum said. “But ultimately the independent consumer of our products will end up paying more, because as we raise the price to our customers, they will raise the price to the ultimate end user.
“We’ll still continue to do business, but the independent owner operator, the small fleet, those are the customers that buy our products (and) those are the ones who will be hurt.”
Prinx Chengshan’s produces all of its TBR tires for North America at its factory in Thailand. The plant, which opened in 2020, has a capacity to build more than two million TBR tires a year, and 800,000 of those units are earmarked for the North American market. (The factory also has passenger and light truck production lines, and the capacity to build more than eight million PLT units — about half of which are for this market.)
The company’s other manufacturing site is in China, but existing tariffs on tires from there eliminate the option of even considering relocation.
“This is the plant,” Felberbaum said of the Thailand factory.
“We will continue to do business, and since there’s not enough capacity available from other markets or countries to meet the current demand (in the U.S. market), we believe we’ll just continue to do business under this anti-dumping duty. That’s just the fact of it.
“We have explained (to our dealers) that our pricing will go up based on the anti-dumping ruling and we’ll do everything in our power to earn your business. And many of our customers who are very loyal to us have continued to order,” Felberbaum said.
He said customers “understand,” but also, “don’t like it.”
