On August 26, the Turkish Ministry of Commerce suddenly announced that it would impose an anti-dumping duty of $1,200 per tonne on China's cross-border chains through the European Union (excluding Spain), and the announcement came into effect immediately, with no buffering period left.
This decision, like a “trade bomb,” not only highlighted Turkey’s determination to block the trade channel, but also meant that China and China’s 16-year trade game around the product was once again escalated.
Turkey’s move is not a coincidence. Since its anti-dumping investigation on the Chinese-originated link chain in July 2009, the tariff of up to $1,200 per tonne has lasted like a “top sword” for fifteen years.
Turkey’s data showed an abnormality: China’s bonding chain exports to the EU rose 300% in 2023 and Turkey’s imports from the EU rose 280% in the same period, but domestic consumption in the EU rose only 2% this “data abnormality” has convinced Turkey that Chinese companies are using the EU to transfer to avoid tariffs.
What is worth paying attention to is Spain's "exempt" status. This is not accidental mercy, but carefully designed strategy. As one of the few countries in the EU with a complete hinged chain industry, Spain's exports to Turkey will account for 62% of the EU's total in 2024.
The granting of the exemption to Spain has both reassured key producers within the EU and avoided its full recession, as well as plotted for potential future investments and cooperation, reflecting Turkish diplomatic pragmatism.
The immediate impact of this policy is to block the path of Chinese hinges entering Turkey through major European Union countries. Turkey's local industrial chain (such as local company Ayzin Zincir) may benefit in the short term, but Turkey's domestic annual production of hinges is less than 80,000 tons, while the annual demand in construction, fishing and other fields exceeds 150,000 tons. The huge supply and demand gap may be widened due to taxation.
In the medium term, this could lead to a 15%-20% rise in domestic downstream manufacturing costs in Turkey and eventually transferred to consumers, pushing up domestic inflation.In addition, port and logistics companies in the EU could also suffer losses from shrinking downstream.
From a more macro perspective, Turkey’s move is a mitigation of the wave of global trade protectionism, with its “anti-evasion” investigation precisely targeting the weak links in the supply chain, aiming to block the path of “origin whitening.”
It is worth noting that the EU is paying attention to such practices and plotting similar measures on Chinese steel products transferred through Serbia, which could trigger the “tariff contagion” effect. If countries follow, global trade barriers will increase further, increasing the cost and uncertainty of the transnational supply chain.
Turkey's tariff increase on China's hinged chain is ostensibly a trade friction around an industrial basic component, but in fact it reveals the deep game in the process of global industrial chain restructuring. It is not only Turkey's unilateral measure to protect local industries, but also reflects the difficult balance between ensuring supply chain security and maintaining an open trading system.
From the sixteen-year "tariff tug-of-war" to the current precise crackdown on entrepot trade, it indicates that international trade rules may be more complicated and strict in the future. For Chinese enterprises, in addition to flexibly responding to trade barriers, they also need to deepen their technological innovation and global layout to enhance their ability to resist risks.