Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties on Coated and Uncoated Paper Imports

Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties on Coated and Uncoated Paper Imports – An Update on our Continuing Work on Trade in the Paper Sector – For the past several years, the USW has fought  for fair trade practices that even the playing field against countries that cheat the system and artificially price goods. While we have testified and won trade cases that imposed duties and had an immediate impact on the industry, It is easy to forget that fighting for these policies is on ongoing battle that we are continuously engaged in. Here is an update on some of the recent cases:

  • Certain Coated Paper through August 2018: The original decision to impose duties was made by the International Trade Commission in November 2010. That decision was based on petitions filed by the USW and NewPage Corporation (since then acquired by Verso), Sappi North America, Appleton Coated LLC in September 2009 with the Department of Commerce and the ITC. The petitions alleged that certain coated paper from China and Indonesia had been subsidized and dumped in the United States, resulting in injury to the domestic industry and its employees. In the ITC decided to continue existing duties for another 5 years. Today, the AD and CVD orders continue to discipline imports from China and Indonesia.
  • Certain Uncoated Paper through August 2018: In January of 2015, the USW, along with Domtar, Finch Paper, P.H. Glatfelter, and PCA, filed countervailing duty petitions on uncoated paper imports from China and Indonesia and antidumping petitions on imports from China, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, and Portugal. 3 ½ years later, overall volume of imports is down 3.4% in the first 8 months of 2018 vs. 2017 and down 46.7% from 2014-2017.
  • Uncoated Paper from Indonesia Countervailing Duties Administrative Review Final Results – One entity responded to the administrative review of countervailing duties applied to uncoated paper from Indonesia – the Company, PT Anugrah Kertas Utama, PT RIAU Andalan Kertas, APRIL Fine Paper Macao Commercial Offshore Limited, and their cross-owned affiliates (collectively “APRIL”). Their CVD rate is expected to decrease due to wood sourcing issues that affected the prices that the rates were initially based on, but trade lawyers are working to make sure that the updated subsidy rate has been calculated correctly. We will also have an opportunity to request another administrative review of the CVD orders for the 2018 period in March 2019. Trade lawyers will be researching and analyzing available information to determine whether it is likely that APRIL’s rate would increase for that period.