April 18, U.S. and Chinese makers of steel wheels were last night respectively bemoaning and celebrating the overnight news that a U.S. trade panel had rejected punitive import duties on steel wheels from China.

In a rare move, the U.S. International Trade Commission voted 6-0 against combined anti-dumping and countervailing duties ranging up to more than 200 percent on steel wheels made in China, which was put forward by U.S. Commerce Department in March, official Chinese media reported.

The decision disappointed U.S. wheel manufacturers, including the country’s two biggest car wheel suppliers Accuride Corp. and Hayes Lemmerz International Inc., who filed the case to seek import relief, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese firms meanwhile cheered that the ITC commissioners did not see their products as harmful to the U.S. domestic industry.

"We argued that there was no competition between the U.S. industry and the Chinese imports in the largest segment of the U.S. market, which is the major truck manufacturers, and today's vote suggests that the ITC agreed with us," Adam Lee, an attorney representing the largest Chinese steel wheel exporter Zhejiang Jingu, told Reuters.

The Chinese side had been concerned about the Commerce Department’s decision to move to impose duties last month, since the rising yuan has already reduced their profits to “zero” and more punitive measures from the U.S. would at last kick Chinese products out of U.S. market, according to China News Service.

“For 6 years, the government of China has avoided initiating legal procedures in trade matters in U.S. courts, but with caution and reluctance it has begun to participate, conspicuously as an interested party in the GPX case,” Elliot J. Feldman, an American expert on international trade remedies, said on his blog.

In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals Federal Circuit concluded that existing U.S. countervailing duty law cannot be applied to non-market economy countries including China. The decision was made in a matter regarding Hebei Starbright Tire Co. Ltd. and GPX International Tire Corp.