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Fair Trade Update: Curtain Wall, Door Thresholds & Vietnam

Well, our year is off and running with a bang. Scope issues, Administrative Review, and circumvention top our list in early 2018.

This month we learned that there will be an appeal in the curtain wall scope case.  Permasteelisa and Jangho filed a notice of appeal last week.  It is expected that Yuanda will almost surely file their own notice of appeal by the deadline, which is February 12. The Chinese industry signaled that they would appeal in a recent article in US Glass magazine.   

Additionally, our scope challenge related to door thresholds continues to move forward.  This is a significant case because door thresholds are expressly mentioned as subject merchandise in our trade orders.  So, to lose this application could open the door to many applications clearly covered by our case.  Finally, we continue to await the judges’ (there are more than one judge at the CIT) decision in the appliance handles cases we defended last fall.  We believe we will win.  However, we are mostly interested to know the basis on which the judges’ rule in our favor.  This could open the door for us to go back to the Department of Commerce (DOC) and ask them to reverse earlier exclusions in key product categories.  So, stay tuned to this one.

The DOC announced its preliminary decision in the Administrative Review in the Anti-Dumping (AD) case.  They announced tariffs would remain at 86%.  This is very good for us, especially in imports from China that are kitted, like curtain wall.  We have not yet seen an announcement from the DOC on the Countervailing Duty (CVD) case.  Hopefully we will have that for you next month.  It currently stands at 20% making our combined rate 106%.

As you would have read in a Trade Alert in January, the AEC did file a circumvention case against Vietnam.  That timeline allows for the DOC to review the petition for 45 days and announce if it will move forward with a full investigation.  We should hear the DOC’s decision later this month.  Therefore, the final decision should occur before the end of 2018.  However, there are many legal maneuvers and DOC actions that could delay both the initial 45 days and the 300 days thereafter.  In the 5000-series and pallet cases, it took almost two years for the final decision. So, we shall see.  The good news is that we got the case filed and it is very strong.

So, even though the 232 Investigation has been the key focus for our industry in recent weeks, it is good to know that we continue to move forward with positive results in the key areas of our trade case against China.  AEC members can read my analysis of the 232 Investigation in this month’s issue of teh AEC member newsletter, essentiALs.

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