ITC Finds US Mattress Industry Injured by Imports from China; Antidumping Duties to Stay in Place

Time：2019-11-29 16:17:04    Share：

By a vote of 4-0. the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) yesterday unanimously found that the U.S. mattress industry has been materially injured by imports of mattresses from the People's Republic of China. 

As we have previously reported, Commerce had announced on May 29, 2019, its preliminary dumping finding. On October 18, 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) issued its final determination that imported mattresses from China were being sold in the United States at less than fair value. In its final determination, Commerce revised the antidumping duty rates applied to these imports. The revised rates range from 57% to 1732%, depending on which companies produced and exported the mattresses from China. 

The significance of the ITC’s vote yesterday is that once its decision is published in the Federal Register (which will occur in several weeks), Commerce will issue an antidumping duty order on mattresses imported from China, and cash deposits of antidumping duties will continue to be collected on such imports at the rates set in Commerce’s final determination. That order will likely remain in place for at least 5 years, at which time parties may request a so-called “sunset review” to determine whether the antidumping duty order remains necessary to protect the U.S. industry from injury. If the ITC finds that the order is still necessary, it will continue in effect for another 5 years, at which time another sunset review may be requested. While the order is in place, Commerce may periodically adjust the amount of the antidumping duties to be collected, and those adjustments can be up or down.

Separately, the ITC yesterday made a finding that will affect entries of certain Chinese mattresses imported before Commerce’s preliminary determination in May 2019. When Commerce issued its preliminary antidumping determination, it also found that “critical circumstances” existed. This meant that Commerce would require the retroactive collection of cash deposits of antidumping duties on mattress imports entered up to 90 days before Commerce’s preliminary determination, pending a decision by the ITC as to whether the entries covered by the retroactive duties were injuring the industry. 

The ITC yesterday found that the entries on which retroactive duties were collected didnot materially injure the U.S. mattress industry. This means that the deposits of antidumping duties that were retroactively collected on those entries will be released, and no antidumping duties will be liquidated on those entries.