The International Trade Commission is expected to issue a ruling by Sept. 25 based on its investigation into whether foreign countries are dumping steel into the U.S. market at less than its fair value.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is looking into whether to impose antidumping and countervailing tariffs on hot-rolled steel products from Brazil, Korea, Turkey, Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. They collectively send more than $2 billion worth of metal to the United States last year.

ArcelorMittal, U.S. Steel, Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics and several other domestic steelmakers filed a trade case, saying cheap imports damaged their business, leading to the idling of facilities like Indiana Harbor Long Carbon, in East Chicago, and thousands of layoffs nationwide.

The federal government could impose tariffs on hot-rolled and flat-rolled products if the trade commission investigation finds foreign companies are undercutting domestic steelmakers on price, or taking advantage of government subsidies. Industry analysts believe that will happen and it will lift prices, improving steelmakers' financial performance. Stock prices are expected to jump.

Alleged dumping margins range from 16.15 percent less than normal value to as much as 173.17 percent on steel from the Netherlands.

If the International Trade Commission finds imports are damaging the domestic industry on Sept. 25, the investigation will continue. The U.S. Department of Commerce would make its preliminary countervailing duty determination in November, and its preliminary antidumping determinations in January.

The American Institute for International Steel, a steel trade association that lobbies for free trade, encouraged the federal government not to take protectionist measures, which it said would stifle growth and disrupt the supply chain.

"It is the position of AIIS that further restraint on imports of foreign steel would result in weakening the economy of the steel supply chain in the United States and threaten the jobs of members within that chain," AIIS attorney Lawrence Hanson said.

Additional duty on the hot-rolled steel flat products would heighten the barrier to entry of steel products and sustain an advantage for domestic producers while discouraging foreign importation, Hanson said. That would have a negative impact upon economic growth and domestic production, likely leading to ayoffs within the international steel supply chain, he said.