United States Announces Final Duties On Steel Products From Vietnam, Taiwan

On December 16, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the U.S. Department of Commerce announced five affirmative final antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) circumvention determinations involving steel products that are produced in Korea and Taiwan, shipped to Vietnam for minor processing, and then exported to the United States as corrosion-resistant steel products (CORE) and cold-rolled steel (CRS) – in circumvention of existing orders. A preliminary determination in this matter was made in July 2019.

As a result of the final determination, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will continue to collect AD and CVD cash deposits on imports of CORE and CRS produced in Vietnam using Korean- or Taiwanese-origin substrate. Commerce said the duties will apply to any unliquidated entries since August 2, 2018, the date on which Commerce initiated its circumvention inquiries. The applicable cash deposit rates will be as high as 456.23 percent, depending on the origin of the substrate and the type of steel product exported to the United States.

Click here to read the full announcement.

Actions like this one are important because, as MSCI said in its testimony to the Trump administration in 2017, “there is growing evidence, that in an attempt to circumvent those rightfully imposed duties, the Chinese and others are simply processing that same steel into steel parts. These countries cannot be allowed to continue to circumvent U.S. rules and regulations when it comes to exporting goods into the United States.”