The U.S. has just announced an extension for deadline to January 5th 2022 to issue the final conclusion on a possible circumvention of antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) orders on stainless steel sheet and strip from Viet Nam, informed by the MoIT’s Trade Remedies Authority of Viet Nam.

The Vietnamese Authority recommends that Vietnamese businesses continue to cooperate with Vietnamese competent authorities and monitor closely the developments of the investigation, providing information to the investigators; timely responding to the conclusions of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and staying in close contact with the Trade Remedies Department during the process of handling that inquiry.

Earlier, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced on May 12, 2020 that the Department self-initiated a circumvention inquiry involving exports of stainless-steel sheet and strip completed in Viet Nam.

The Press Release made it clear that the U.S. Department of Commerce would instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to suspend liquidation and begin collecting cash deposits on imports of stainless sheet and strip completed in Viet Nam using Chinese-origin stainless steel flat-rolled inputs and/or Chinese-origin stainless sheet and strip further processed in Viet Nam if it preliminarily determined that circumvention is occurring; and that duties would be imposed on future imports and on any unliquidated entries from the date of initiation of the circumvention inquiry for products found to be circumventing the AD and CVD orders, or subject to their scope.

On March 8, 2018, the U.S. imposed a 25% import duties on steel under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 citing national security issues. In continuation with the above-mentioned decision, on May 21, 2018, the U.S. Department of Commerce introduced import duties on Vietnamese steel products that originated in China. However, importers and exporters can seek an exemption if they can certify that their products are produced from substrate originating in Viet Nam or any other country, outside of China.

The U.S. Commerce Department announced in early February 2017 that it would impose punitive tariffs ranging from 63.86% to 190.71% on China’s stainless-steel products. Meanwhile stainless-steel sheet and strip originated from Viet Nam is enjoying 0% of imports duties./.