Minneapolis, MN: The U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) voted unanimously (5-0) that the domestic U.S. industry was injured because of unfairly traded imports of quartz surface products from India and Turkey in response to petitions filed by domestic producer Cambria.  U.S. Customs and Border Patrol will continue collecting duties on all quartz surface products from India and Turkey, and all importers of these products will be under the discipline of antidumping and countervailing duty orders. 

The duty rates that the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) determined in its investigation will be under regular review and constant scrutiny whereby the duty rates are adjusted to reflect the dumping practices and subsidies of the foreign producers.  In a recent move to strengthen U.S. trade remedy laws, Commerce has announced a new rule that will treat a foreign country’s currency undervaluation as a countervailable subsidy.  This new rule—which was not in effect during the investigations—will apply to administrative reviews of these orders and could result in much higher duty liabilities. These adjustments will be made retroactive to account for any increases in the foreign producers’ level of subsidization and dumping.  The review process resulting from this ruling of unfair trade imports from India and Turkey will ensure that imports under the discipline of antidumping and countervailing duty orders are not being sold at unfair prices and reflect market-based economics, thus preventing foreign producers and exporters from receiving an unfair advantage from barriers to trade and subsidies in their home markets.