PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine industrial textile manufacturer has asked federal trade officials to impose duties on imported silica fabric from China, arguing that the products are unfairly subsidized by the Chinese government.
Auburn Manufacturing Inc., the largest producer of that insulating industrial fabric, said Thursday that it filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate Chinese imports of certain amorphous silica fabric.
The Mechanic Falls-based company also has complained that the imports fail to comply with federal requirements for the U.S. Department of Defense to buy only textiles that have at least 50 percent of U.S.-made content.
“In the long run, if these unfair practices are not curbed, the U.S. military will suffer because it will be unable to source these products from U.S. companies,” the company said in a news release about the petition. “The filing of the petition was necessary to keep AMI as a viable supplier to the Navy and to protect textile workers in Maine.”
The petition asks federal regulators to begin investigating and determine whether the Chinese government has subsidized silica fabric imports and whether those subsidies meet requirements for imposing duties on those imports.
Auburn Manufacturing, founded in 1979, makes a variety of textile products for extreme temperature applications.