The International Trade Commission should revoke the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin from Canada, China, India and Oman due to the U.S. industry already running at full capacity and undertaking market distorting practices, PET resin consumers will tell the ITC during a sunset review of the orders. The PET resin consumers, including members of the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), note the inflationary effect the AD/CVD orders on PET resin have on their prices and mark the orders as one of the factors contributing to unsustainable price hikes amid shortages in one of bottled water's essential inputs.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. Dec. 2-3 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce objects to legislation meant to update antidumping and countervailing duty laws, it said in a letter to leadership of House Ways and Means Committee and its Trade Subcommittee. Soon after the Chamber sent its letter, lawmakers introduced the House version of the Eliminating Global Market Distortions to Protect American Jobs Act, the legislation that the Chamber has concerns about. "The Chamber opposes this bill, which has not been subject to the scrutiny and deliberation required for a complex, far-reaching measure amending U.S. AD/CVD laws," the Chamber said. "This major overhaul of U.S. trade laws could add to inflationary pressures by raising costs for a wide variety of goods, including many products sourced from U.S. allies and partners."
There are no substantive differences between two cases challenging antidumping duty investigations into goods from India, one of which was granted a voluntary remand, so the Court of International Trade should grant a remand for the other, the plaintiffs for that case argued in a Dec. 1 brief. Both cases concern the lack of verification due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and CIT should allow Commerce to review whether it was appropriate to rely on supplemental questionnaire responses instead of on-site verification (Bonney Forge Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03837).
The Commerce Department properly gave a non-mandatory respondent a non-de minimis countervailing duty rate in a CVD administrative review despite the fact that both of the actual mandatory respondents received de minimis rates, the Court of International Trade said in a Dec. 2 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly held that the "expected method" for calculating duties for non-mandatory respondents only applies in the antidumping duty context, and not to CV duty proceedings.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Dec. 1 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 30 consolidated three court cases, all challenging the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018-2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel flanges from India. The three cases are now consolidated under the action brought by Kisaan Die Tech Private Limited and all concern whether Commerce's all-others rate calculation was in accordance with the law. In the review, the agency hit the one mandatory respondent with adverse facts available, then extended this rate to all other respondents (see 2109140030). Kisaan challenged this action, arguing that "all other" respondents never failed to cooperate with Commerce's review, precluding the agency from hitting them with AFA (Kissan Die Tech Private Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00512).
The Commerce Department's refusal to calculate a non-adverse facts available rate for all other respondents in a countervailing duty review is not in accordance with the law, steel wheel importer Rimco said in its Nov. 30 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The agency's move of averaging the AFA rates to come up with a 388.1% all-others rate in the review is not backed by substantial evidence and cuts against a past CIT ruling, Rimco said (Rimco, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00588).
The Department of Justice's insistence on defending the Commerce Department's position regarding China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in countervailing duty investigations is "mystifying" seeing as it refuses to appeal the issue after multiple defeats at the Court of International Trade, respondent Both-Well (Taizhou) Steel Fittings Co. said in a Nov. 30 brief (Both-Well (Taizhou) Steel Fittings v. U.S., CIT #21-00166).