Texas Industries, through its subsidiary TXI Operations, submitted a letter on 24 August 2012 to the Department of Commerce and the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center, asking that Commerce self-initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations of "unfairly priced" Portland cement from Greece and the Republic of Korea into the Texas region, USA.

TXI believes that imports from Greece and Korea are being sold at less than fair value (ie, dumped) and benefit from government subsidies.

“These unfairly traded imports have materially injured Texas cement producers and their employees,” TXI said in a statement.

The company added that notwithstanding continued excess cement production capacity in Texas, imports from Greece and Korea increased by almost 40 per cent from 2009 to 2011, and increased another 14 per cent from the first half of 2011 to the first half of 2012. “These imports took substantial sales volumes from Texas producers resulting in further underutilisation of production capacity for Texas producers. Moreover, unfairly low import prices have harmed profitability,” according to TXI.

TXI recognizes that it has been many years since the Department of Commerce has self-initiated a trade investigation, but it believes there are compelling reasons for Commerce to do so in this instance. “Given the existing high levels of unemployment, it is particularly important for the Obama Administration to vigorously enforce our trade laws so as not to support the off-shoring of American jobs,” the company said.