Sanctions were supposed to isolate Russia. But what if support can still reach the U.S. through a third country — even inside a pizza box?
At Corrugated Week in Fort Worth, Laurent Sellier, President & CEO of Smurfit Westrock North America, came over to our Corruga Empire table and joined the game. I told him that corruga.expert was investigating the surge of corrugated pizza boxes from Türkiye into the U.S. and asked what he thought was behind it. Sellier told me there could be a Russian connection. That immediately caught my attention — because it was exactly the question we were already trying to answer.
A pizza box. Flat. Cheap. Nobody cares.
Until it becomes a weapon.
On September 9, 2026, Smurfit Westrock, Pratt Industries and the United Steelworkers asked Washington for protection. Antidumping duties on corrugated pizza boxes from China, Malaysia and Türkiye. Countervailing duties on Türkiye for subsidies.
And one line in the filing changes everything.
The petitioners say there is evidence that the Russian government has provided cross-border subsidies benefiting pizza box producers in Türkiye.
That allegation has not been proven by the U.S. Department of Commerce. But if investigators accept it, the case could test a U.S. trade rule that changed in 2024, when Commerce strengthened its ability to counter transnational subsidies.
Moscow. Ankara. A pizzeria in Ohio.
The numbers don’t lie
Imports from the three countries rose from 40.2 million lb in 2023 to 92.4 million lb in 2025. Up 130%.
China is shrinking. Türkiye is exploding.
From 14.8 million lb to 61.6 million lb. Up 317%. Two-thirds of all subject imports.
That is roughly 128 million boxes a year. About 5,000 containers. Fourteen a day. Every day. Out of Istanbul.
One container, two economies
A 16-inch corrugated board pizza box weighs about 0.48 lb — roughly 220 grams. A 40-ft container holds around 25,000 flat die-cut blanks.
Estimated logistics cost: Istanbul → New York
Corruga.expert estimate for one 40-ft container carrying approximately 25,000 flat pizza-box blanks. Figures are approximate.
What the box costs before and after the ocean journey
2025 average landed duty-paid value compared with the estimated value of the box leaving Türkiye. Corruga.expert estimates; not Commerce or USITC findings.
Read it again.
The voyage costs more than the box.
That is the mystery at the center of this case: how does a 17-cent box survive a 22-cent ocean journey?
Corrugated board has always been a local business. It is bulky. It is cheap. Freight eats the margin. No sane economics ships it across the Atlantic.
Someone does.
Our industry has seen this trick before.
Bananas sail from Latin America to Europe in refrigerated ships. For years those ships went back light. The return leg cost almost nothing. So they carried European banana boxes. Flat. Printed. Ready to fold on the plantation.
Local box plants lost orders to boxes that crossed the Atlantic almost for free.
Today the flow runs differently. The box is made at home. The paper travels. Ecuador alone makes about 400 million boxes a year for bananas and plantains, on kraftliner shipped in from the U.S. East Coast and Europe.
A box crosses an ocean only when the ride is nearly free.
Istanbul to New York is no free ride. The table above shows it: 22 cents a box.
The math that doesn’t add up
A U.S.-made 16-inch box sells to a distributor for roughly $0.35–0.45.
Subtract $0.22 for logistics. Subtract the importer’s margin. For the trade to make sense, a Turkish plant must sell the box for 15 to 18 cents.
The paper alone in that box costs 10 to 12 cents.
That leaves 5 to 7 cents for starch, gas, power, labor, printing, die-cutting, depreciation and profit.
That is where the petitioners’ theory enters the story.
Low-cost energy or raw materials can help explain an unusually low export price, but they do not by themselves prove a countervailable subsidy. Investigators would still have to establish a measurable link between any foreign-government support, the Turkish producer’s costs and the exported pizza boxes.
Russia supplied more than 40% of Türkiye’s gas imports in 2024. That provides context for the cost question, not proof of subsidization.
The legal reason this matters is recent. Commerce’s updated rules, effective in April 2024, strengthened its ability to counter transnational subsidies. If Commerce pursues the allegation here, pizza boxes could become an early test of how that framework works in practice.
Duties as a shield
The petition alleges Turkish dumping margins of 120.65% to 210.37%.
On an 18-cent box, that is 22 to 38 cents of duty. Landed cost jumps from 35 cents to 57–73 cents.
More than the American box.
At those duty levels, the economics of the trade could change dramatically. A Turkish box landed at 57–73 cents would struggle to compete with a U.S.-made box at roughly 35–45 cents.
American producers have used trade remedies before:
Paper shopping bags (2024): Malaysia up to 112.22%, Türkiye 47.56%. Paper plates (2025): China up to 515.40%.
Molded fiber (2025): China 477.97%, Vietnam 260.56%.
Folding gift boxes: an order still in place after four sunset reviews. Protection can last decades.
Will Türkiye pay the price?
For now, that question belongs to the trade case, not to a geopolitical verdict.
The petitioners are asking Commerce to test whether alleged foreign-government support crossing a border can be countervailed when it benefits producers in a third country. Commerce’s 2024 rules make that question newly relevant.
If Commerce accepts that theory and the USITC finds injury, the precedent could matter beyond pizza boxes — including paper and packaging supply chains where energy, fibre or other inputs cross several borders before the finished product reaches the U.S.
Today it is pizza boxes. If the legal theory succeeds, tomorrow similar questions could reach other paper and packaging supply chains.
Endgame
The pizza-box case tests three things.
Whether the USITC finds injury. Whether Commerce pursues the cross-border subsidy allegation. And whether any resulting duties change the economics of the trade.
On October 23, the U.S. International Trade Commission casts its preliminary vote. In December, Commerce is expected to rule preliminarily on Turkish subsidies.
Let’s see how the pizza box war ends.
And who pays for the pizza.
What a box plant should watch
- the preliminary USITC injury vote;
- whether Commerce initiates and pursues the cross-border subsidy allegation;
- Turkish supplier pricing after any preliminary duties;
- distributor inventory;
- domestic pizza-box pricing;
- possible substitution toward other import origins.
For box plants, this is where the legal case becomes an operating question: pricing, sourcing, inventory and customer demand.
Methodology and sources
Import volumes and values come from published petition data. Per-box costs, container loading and break-even figures are CORRUGA.EXPERT estimates based on public freight quotes, product weights and market price ranges. They are not Commerce or USITC findings. Dumping margins and the Russian cross-border subsidy claim are allegations by the petitioners. No final determination has been made by Commerce or the USITC.
USITC; Wiley Rein; International Trade & Supply Chain Insights — petition and case documents
Fastmarkets; Packaging Dive; Wood Central — trade-case and cross-border subsidy coverage
U.S. Department of Commerce — 2024 transnational-subsidy rule
Interworld Freight; Excellent Packaging — freight and 16-inch box inputs
Reuters; FreshPlaza — Türkiye gas imports and Ecuador banana-box/kraftliner context
By Igor Tkalenko, Chief Editor, corruga.expert
