Treatment of Section 232 Duties in Commerce Antidumping Proceedings

Authors

Elizabeth J. Drake

Abstract

The goal of antidumping methodologies is to achieve a fair comparison between the price of a product in the United States (“U.S. price”) and the price at which it is sold in the exporters’ home market (or other normal value) in order to quantify and remedy the amount of dumping that has occurred. Thus, the law requires U.S. import duties to be deducted from U.S. price in order to permit an apples-to-apples comparison between U.S. prices and home market prices that do not bear any U.S. import duties. The U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) has created an exception to this rule for U.S. import duties that are designed to address some of the same harms that antidumping duties address. In order to avoid a double remedy for those overlapping harms, such duties are not deducted from U.S. price.

After the President imposed duties on steel and aluminum articles to protect national security in 2018, Commerce was required to determine whether these duties also qualified for the exception to the normal rule. Commerce determined that Section 232 duties and antidumping duties address distinct harms and do not create a double remedy. Therefore, Commerce determined that Section 232 duties should be subject to the general rule and be deducted from U.S. price. This article examines Commerce’s reasoning and offers additional support for the conclusion Commerce reached.

Recommended Citation

Elizabeth J. Drake, Treatment of Section 232 Duties in Commerce Antidumping Proceedings, 28 U. MIA Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 1 (2021)
Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umiclr/vol28/iss1/3