Commerce Announces New AD Duties on Canada Softwood Lumber, Adds Scope Exemptions
The Commerce Department announced its preliminary determination to impose antidumping duty cash deposit requirements on softwood lumber from Canada, in a fact sheet dated June 26 (here). The agency also set several new exemptions from the scope of softwood lumber duties, including for finished products and lumber produced in Atlantic provinces of Canada. Rates range from 4.59% to 7.72%, and take effect retroactively for some Canadian exporters. The new AD duties come on top of CV duties imposed on Canadian softwood lumber in April (see 1704270022).
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Newly exempt from AD/CV duties are “softwood lumber products certified by the Atlantic Lumber Board (ALB) as being first produced in the Provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island from logs harvested in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island,” Commerce said. Commerce also added new language to the scope exempting U.S.-origin lumber that has undergone “limited processing” in Canada.
The amended scope also exempts “finished goods” that have “undergone sufficient processing such that the merchandise can no longer be considered an intermediate product; and [are] able to be readily differentiated from subject merchandise.” Examples of finished goods include assembled pallets; assembled trusses; assembled garage doors; assembled door frames; assembled window frames; assembled I-joists, open-webbed floor joists; edge-glued wood; cross-laminated timber; assembled furniture; butcher block countertops; cutting boards; assembled wood toys; assembled wooden frames for paintings, photographs and mirrors; assembled wood blinds; clothes hangers; tableware; trays; wall art; and marquetry, Commerce said. Also exempt are finished furniture kits, Commerce said.
On the other hand, Commerce rejected a bevy of requests to exempt items from the scope in its preliminary determination. Such products include truss kits, pallet kits, home packages and kits, window and door frame components, tongue and groove flooring products, siding, notched stringers, pre-cut bridging, pre-finished boards with a primer, stain, or coating applied to all four finished sides, high-value lumber (including finger-jointed pine lumber), landscape ties, yellow cedar, western red cedar, eastern white pine, certain Douglas fir and hemlock lumber, lumber produced in Canada from U.S.-origin logs, lumber produced from logs harvested on First Nations Treaty land or private land, and bed frame and crating ladder components.
The new cash deposit requirements will take effect for Canfor, Resolute, Tolko and West Fraser Mills upon publication of the preliminary determination in the Federal Register. However, Commerce found “critical circumstances” exist for all other Canadian producers and exporters of softwood lumber, in that they increased exports to the U.S. in the run-up to imposition of AD duties. For these “all others” companies, cash deposit requirements will take effect 90 days prior to publication of the preliminary determination.
Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for copies of the memorandums discussing Commerce’s scope determinations.