US Trade Case Duty Issue Intensifies

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) held two hearings in the month of October, and one more will be considered next month, as part of the five-year (sunset) review process. The Department of Commerce reviews requests that interested parties file to discuss the likely effects of revoking the order under review. Early this year, the US ITC finalized countervailing and dumping duties on producers of cutsize office/copy paper from Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia and Portugal. On October 27th the ITC heard testimony on the full sunset reviews of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain coated paper suitable for high-quality print graphics using sheet-fed presses from China and Indonesia. Vice President Geenen testified at the October 27th hearing. The other two current US cases involve supercalendered paper and lightweight thermal paper.