The Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) has initiated a reconsideration of its recommendation to impose a new anti-dumping measure on imports of certain excavators from China
The TRA, the government office that polices trade disputes, was persuaded by JCB to look into the practices of Chinese excavator manufacturers, which were alleged to have been dumping cheap product on the UK market, undercutting the competition by more than 23%, effectively buying market share with Chinese state support.
In November 2024 the TRA recommended that the government impose anti-dumping duties ranging from 33% to 83.5% on Chinese manufacturers.
The tariffs came into force in May 2025 with Chinese-made Caterpillar excavators to the list, with a 18.8% tariff, and reduced rates for other Chinese makes of between 20% to 40%.
However, in response to petitions from Caterpillar and LiuGong, the TRA is looking again at its recommendation.
Caterpillar has questioned the TRA鈥檚 calculation of the individual anti-dumping amount that was calculated for it as the sampled cooperating overseas exporter to the original investigation. It has asked the TRA to recalculate the injury margin, dumping margin, injury and causal link determination and the form of the anti-dumping measures.
LiuGong argued that its battery electric machines should not be included within the scope of the tariff since there is no UK equivalent from which it is unfairly taking market share. It has asked for battery electric machines to be removed from the description of the goods and all related tariffs.
The TRA said it would reconsider but offered no indication of how long this might take. Existing measures will remain in force in the interim.
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