US Finds Circumvention on Stainless Steel from Vietnam

The US Department of Commerce has preliminarily determined that certain Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip of Chinese-origin that has undergone further processing in Vietnam is merchandise covered by the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip from China. Additionally, US DOC preliminarily determines that Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip that is completed in Vietnam using certain non-subject stainless steel flat-rolled inputs sourced from China is circumventing the AD/CVD orders on Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip from China. As a result, Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip of Chinese-origin that has undergone further processing or completion in Vietnam will be subject to suspension of liquidation effective 15 May 2020 and has invited interested parties to comment on these preliminary determinations.Where a Vietnamese company subject to these inquiries reports that the finished Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip products that it has exported to the United States were produced by a specific Chinese supplier that has its own company-specific rate under the Orders, the cash deposit rate will be the Chinese supplier’s company-specific rate. Otherwise, Commerce will instruct CBP to require AD cash deposits equal to the current China wide rate of 58.04% and cash deposits equal to the current all-others rate of 75.60%. The suspension of liquidation instructions wall remain in effect until further notice.In reaching these preliminary determinations, US DOC relied on information placed on the record by a petitioner in the original investigation, Outokumpu Stainless USA and information placed on the record by POSCO VST, POSCO Vietnam Processing Center Company Limited and Silverwood (Hong Kong) Ltd.On 15 May 2020, US DOC published in the Federal Register initiation of country-wide circumvention and scope inquiries of the AD and CVD orders on Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip from China to determine if imports of Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip completed in Vietnam using certain non-subject stainless steel flat-rolled inputs manufactured in China are circumventing the Orders, and to determine whether Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip that is produced in China and undergoes further processing in Vietnam before being exported to the United States is subject to the Orders, respectively.This scope inquiry covers Stainless Steel Sheet & Strip of Chinese-origin that has undergone further processing in Vietnam (including but not limited to cold-rolling, annealing, tempering, polishing, aluminizing, coating, painting, varnishing, trimming, cutting, punching, and/or slitting, or any other processing that would not otherwise remove the merchandise from the scope of the Orders) that is subsequently exported to the United States.