The Commerce Department is giving advance notice that next month it will consider revoking the antidumping duty orders on carbon and certain alloy steel wire rod from Brazil, Indonesia, Moldova, and Trinidad and Tobago (A-351-832, A-560-815, A-841-805, A-274-804); circular welded austenitic stainless pressure pipe from China (A-570-930), welded stainless steel pressure pipe from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand (A-557-815, A-552-816, A-549-830); and silicon metal from Russia (A-821-817); as well as the countervailing duty orders on carbon and certain alloy steel wire rod from Brazil (C-351-833) and circular welded austenitic stainless pressure pipe from China (C-570-931); and the antidumping duty suspension agreement on oil country tubular goods from Ukraine (A-823-815), in automatic five-year sunset reviews scheduled to begin in June 2019. These orders will be revoked unless Commerce finds that revocation would lead to a continuation or recurrence of dumping and the International Trade Commission finds that revocation would result in continuation or recurrence of material injury to a U.S. industry.
Russia export controls and sanctions
The use of export controls and sanctions on Russia has surged since the country's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and especially its invasion of Ukraine in in February 2022. Similar export controls and sanctions have been imposed by U.S. allies, including the EU, U.K. and Japan. The following is a listing of recent articles in Export Compliance Daily on export controls and sanctions imposed on Russia:
The World Trade Organization formally adopted the Russia-Ukraine panel ruling, the first time the WTO tackled the national security exception from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (see 1904120022). The case has implications for the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, which have hit U.S. allies as well as strategic competitors. The panel had found that the Russian Federation had met the requirements for invoking the national security clause in restricting transit of goods across its territory to Ukraine, because Russian seizure of Ukrainian territory (Crimea) counts as a time of international emergency.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website April 17, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADD CVD Search page.
Now that the World Trade Organization has ruled that Russia was justified in blocking transit of Ukrainian goods across its territory under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade's national security exception, lawyers are trying to project how a different panel will view the U.S. use of the same rationale for its steel and aluminum tariffs.
The U.S. says the World Trade Organization is hobbled and Roberto Azevedo, the director general of the WTO, said the conversations around reform are gaining momentum. "I think we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew the trading system," he said at a speech April 11 at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Inaction would compromise the relevance or even the existence of the system as we know it." Among the U.S. complaints about the international body are that the WTO's rules are inadequate for dealing with China's myriad subsidies and that countries can self-designate as developing countries, thereby avoiding concessions in negotiations.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website March 29, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADD CVD Search page.
The Commerce Department issued the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on hot-rolled flat-rolled carbon-quality steel products from Russia (A-821-809). The agency preliminarily said the only company under review, Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), had no bona fide exports of subject merchandise to the U.S. during the period under review. If Commerce's "no shipments" finding for NLMK is continued in the final results, subject merchandise from NLMK will continue to enter at the AD rate set in the most recent previous review, and any entries filed with NLMK's case number entered Dec. 1, 2016, through Nov. 30, 2017, will be liquidated at the "all others" rate. Commerce will make its final decision when it issues the final results of this review, currently due in May.
If any of the countries under review in the Generalized Systems of Preferences are going to lose access to the program, India is the most likely, according to a trade advocate who works on GSP. The advocate spoke to International Trade Today after speaking with staff who handle GSP at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and said he does not know if India will have some products removed, be suspended, or, like Russia, "graduate" from the program because the U.S. says it has developed enough.
Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2012 initially led to greater U.S. exports, but overall, its adherence to WTO rules has been disappointing, the U.S. trade representative said in his annual report to Congress. The report, released late Feb. 4, said non-tariff barriers are a greater problem than tariffs. In 2017, the U.S. exported $7 billion in goods to Russia, with aircraft accounting for one-third of the total. The U.S. imported $17 billion in goods, with oil nearly half of that and steel and aluminum about a quarter of the total.
The Senate voted 57-42 to proceed on a resolution of disapproval of the Trump administration's plan to lift sanctions on Russian aluminum producer Rusal and related companies. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued before the vote that the resolution is not a political stunt, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has alleged. He accused the administration of making its announcement before the Christmas holiday "hoping no one would notice."