Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced an affirmative preliminary antidumping duty (AD) circumvention ruling involving exports of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) blends from China (R-404A, R-407A, R-407C, R-410A, R-507A) that are processed in India using both Chinese and Indian components, and then exported to the United States, circumventing the existing AD order on imports of HFC blends from China. Commerce also announced an affirmative preliminary AD circumvention ruling involving exports of HFC components from China (R-32, R-125, R-143a) for further processing in the United States that are circumventing the existing AD order on imports of HFC blends from China.
Accordingly, Commerce will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to suspend liquidation and to require a cash deposit of estimated duties on unliquidated entries of HFC blends from India which contain components from China, and on unliquidated entries of HFC components R-32, R-125, and R-143a from China.
The applicable cash deposit rate for HFC blends from India blended with Chinese HFC components will be 216.37 percent. For HFC components from China, Commerce will instruct CBP to collect cash deposits in accordance with those rates prevailing at the time of entry, depending upon the exporter in question. These rates will apply to any future imports and unliquidated entries since June 18, 2019 (the date which Commerce initiated these circumvention inquiries).
These inquiries were initiated in response to allegations of circumvention from the American HFC Coalition.
U.S. law provides that Commerce may find circumvention of AD or countervailing duty orders when merchandise subject to an existing order is completed or assembled in a third country or the United States from parts and components imported from the country subject to the order, pursuant to section 781 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended.
The strict enforcement of U.S. trade law is a primary focus of the Trump administration. To date, the Trump administration has issued 48 preliminary or final affirmative determinations in anti-circumvention inquiries – this is a 200 percent increase from the number of such determinations made during the comparable period in the previous administration.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Enforcement and Compliance unit within the International Trade Administration is responsible for vigorously enforcing U.S. trade rules and does so through an impartial, transparent process that abides by international rules and is based on factual evidence provided on the record.
