Lawmakers Urge ITC to Let Only Verifiable Evidence Inform MTB Disqualification Recommendations
The International Trade Commission should ignore claims about domestic production that lack hard evidence when it considers disqualifications for miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) benefits, the top four trade lawmakers said in a July 21 letter to ITC Chairwoman Rhonda Schmidtlein (here). Congress anticipates considering a first round of MTB legislation “later this year,” the letter days. For articles to be eligible for MTB duty relief, each product must cost less than $500,000 in U.S. government revenue loss, not be produced in the U.S., and not be considered controversial. “The Committees emphasize that blanket assertions regarding domestic production without evidence demonstrating such production should be deemed insufficient,” wrote House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and ranking member Richard Neal, D-Mass., as well as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “An objection based upon imminent production must demonstrate more than that production is theoretically possible.”
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The lawmakers wrote to the ITC after the committees reviewed the preliminary report sent to Congress June 9. The ITC is expected to deliver its final report to Capitol Hill by Aug. 8 (see 1706120002). In line with the American Manufacturing and Competitiveness Act of 2016, the letter was intended to provide additional information in support of moving petitions recommended for MTB denial in ITC’s preliminary report to being recommended for acceptance with or without modification. Specific concerns surround instances in which entities raised MTB objections for certain products to the Commerce Department not made available to the public, the lawmakers said. Petitioners are unaware of the objector’s identity and the reason for objection, and might not be able to meaningfully respond to the objection, the lawmakers said. The committees met with “dozens of petitioners” about their petitions and the new MTB process, the letter says.
Several petitioners raised concerns that the ITC and Commerce weren’t consistent in applying what constituted an article “identical, like, or directly competitive” to domestic products, the letter says. The lawmakers also emphasized that the ITC is statutorily required in its preliminary and final reports to determine any domestic production of such products, and that the final report must reflect the ITC’s conclusions, and while the ITC must take Commerce’s findings into account, “the ITC should not automatically substitute another agency’s conclusions for its own.” The committees “understand and expect” that the ITC is working with CBP and Commerce to determine whether petitions currently not recommended for approval should be recommended in the final report, the letter says. Committees are “confident in the objectivity” of ITC’s analysis, the letter says.
“The Committees expect that the ITC is continuing to communicate with petitioners regarding questions it may have concerning any additional information provided during the reopening of the portal so that it can conduct a complete analysis,” the letter says. “This will ensure that the ITC’s reopening of the portal was not only fair and transparent, but also meaningful.”