Trade Cases

Commerce Gives Final Ruling in Japanese Tin Products Sunset Review

Written by Laura Miller


The US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration has issued its final ruling in an expedited sunset review of antidumping duties on imports of tin mill products from Japan.

Commerce found that the imports would likely continue to be dumped at a margin of 95.29% should the duties be revoked. The department issued its ruling in a Federal Register filing.

The AD duties on Japanese tin mill product imports have been in place since 2000. This is the fourth sunset review of the duties. Sunset reviews are conducted every five years as required by international trade law.

The International Trade Commission must now issue its final injury determination in its portion of the sunset review. An affirmative injury ruling – meaning revoking the duties would likely cause injury to the domestic industry – would result in the duties being maintained for another five years. A negative injury finding by the ITC would eliminate the duties completely.

While Commerce conducted an expedited review, the ITC decided to conduct a full sunset review of these duties in September. A full review will be completed within 360 days of initiation, while an expedited review is completed within 150 days.

The ITC told SMU that a schedule for the review is still being developed.

Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel are the domestic parties participating in this investigation.

Current Tin Mill Products Trade Case

Separately, a new trade case investigating the alleged dumping and subsidizing of tin mill products from a handful of countries is underway.

The countries being investigated are Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UK.

Cleveland-Cliffs and the United Steelworkers (USW) union filed the trade case in January.

More information about the case can be found here.

Laura Miller

Read more from Laura Miller

Latest in Trade Cases

Leibowitz on trade: Why is protectionism so popular?

The world has had a few shocks recently. The CEO of a major health insurance company was gunned down in Manhattan. The 50-year Assad dynasty in Syria was pushed out less than two weeks after rebels started an offensive. And President-elect Trump is promising tariffs on everything a month before he takes office. But one shock has been taking place for a lot longer than the last few weeks. The 70-year consensus on trade hasn’t just been challenged. It’s been repudiated.