The Commerce Department is beginning antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Belarus, Italy, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, it said in a fact sheet released April 18 (here). A group of U.S. steel producers requested the investigations on March 28 (see 1703300012). The International Trade Commission is scheduled to make its preliminary injury determination by May 12. These AD/CV duty investigations will only continue if the ITC finds injury. International Trade Today will provide more details upon publication of the initiation notice in the Federal Register.
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 Bureau of Industry and Security is updating the designation of the Russian Federal Security Service (aka, the FSB) on the Entity List to conform with an Office of Foreign Assets Control general license issued Feb. 2 allowing certain transactions with the foreign entity related to the importation, distribution or use of certain information technology products in Russia, BIS said (here). The final rule will modify the license requirement column for that entity to clarify that the Entity List’s license requirements don’t apply to items subject to the Export Administration Regulations related to OFAC transactions pursuant to Cyber-related General License 1, as long as the transactions don’t involve exportation, re-exportation or provision of any goods technology, or services to the Crimea region of Ukraine “and do not otherwise violate [Executive Order] 13757.”
The International Trade Commission published notices in the April 3 Federal Register on the following AD/CV injury, Section 337 patent and other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will be in another ITT article):
A group of domestic steel producers recently filed a petition with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission requesting new antidumping duties on carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Belarus, Italy, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, and new countervailing duties on carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Italy and Turkey. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations on steel wire rod from these countries.
The State Department barred U.S. government procurement and goods sales to a range of individuals and organizations, in accordance with the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act (here). That ban covers an organization’s successors, subunits and subsidiaries, and includes all items on the U.S. Munitions List, Export Administration Regulations, as well as any defense or defense-related item. The Commerce Department also will not issue any licenses for any of the following individuals and organizations:
The leaders of the Senate Banking Committee said that U.S. sanctions on Russia should remain in place until Russian forces stop their intervention in eastern Ukraine, according to opening statements for a March 15 hearing. Until Russia changes its behavior with regard to Ukraine, U.S. sanctions should be targeted and staged according to “realistic conditions,” committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho said (here). “One thing is clear: any reduction to the level of sanctions in the absence of a corresponding shift in Russian behavior will be interpreted as a change in U.S. policy on Russia’s involvement in Ukraine,” Crapo said. Committee ranking member Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, echoed Crapo’s sentiment.
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of March 8 (some may also be given separate headlines):
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website March 1, 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 http://adcvd.cbp.dhs.gov/adcvdweb.
Agricultural export stakeholders before a congressional panel on Feb. 28 requested that the expected 2018 Farm Bill double the current authorized funding levels for two government food export assistance programs. During a hearing of the House Agriculture Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee on the next farm bill’s addressment of international development programs, industry members requested twofold growth of the $200 million yearly authorization for governmental food export assistance under the Foreign Agricultural Service’s (FAS) Market Access Program (MAP) and the current $34.5 million annual authorization for export financing under FAS’s Foreign Market Development (FMD) program.
Lawmakers recently introduced the following trade-related bills: