By Zachary Walker
The federal government’s fiscal year (FY) 2021 concluded on September 30, 2021. Over the course of FY 2021, a total of 34 antidumping and countervailing duty petitions were filed with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission. This number is a substantial decrease from the previous fiscal year (i.e., FY 2020) when 114 AD and CVD petitions were filed. Indeed, fewer AD and CVD petitions were filed in all of FY 2021 than in either the second (43) or third (35) quarters of FY 2020. The number of petitions filed in FY 2021 is also well‑below the average number of petitions filed annually over the last decade.
The 34 petitions in FY 2021 were filed on behalf of 11 separate industries and cover the following products:
- Freight Rail Coupler Systems
- Acrylonitrile-Butadiene Rubber
- Urea Ammonium Nitrate Solutions
- Raw Honey
- Organic Soybean Meal
- Walk-Behind Snow Throwers
- Mobile Access Equipment
- Granular Polytetrafluoroethylene
- R-125 (Pentafluoroethane)
- Polyester Textured Yarn
- Thermal Paper
Notably, no petitions were filed in FY 2021 on steel, aluminum, or pipe & tube products (although the first set of petitions filed in FY 2022 seek AD and CVD duties on oil country tubular goods). Indeed, more than 14 months passed between the filing of petitions on any of these products.
Of the 34 petitions filed in FY 2021, about 25 percent (8 out of 34) involve products imported from China. This represents an increase from FY 2020 when roughly one out of every six petitions involved products from China.
Other than China, the second highest amount of AD and CVD petitions involved imports from India (5). Overall, the 34 petitions were submitted with respect to imports from 17 different countries.
Although the U.S. International Trade Commission has only been able to report the total import value associated with 16 of the 34 petitions, the total amount of imports covered by AD and CVD petitions in FY 2021 is dwarfed by those of the previous fiscal year. For example, per available information from the Commission, the largest petitions filed in the last fiscal year were the five AD petitions on raw honey, covering $321 million in subject imports. In comparison, in FY 2020, the five AD and CVD petitions submitted regarding passenger vehicle and light truck tires covered $4.4 billion in subject imports, while the twenty-two AD and CVD petitions filed on common alloy aluminum sheet encompassed $2.3 billion in subject imports, the two CVD petitions on phosphate fertilizers involved $835 million in subject imports, and the eight AD and CVD petitions that went forward on mattresses involved over $794 million in subject imports.
In its FY 2022 budget justification, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration reported that its “trade enforcement activity . . . is at historic highs” and that there has been “a historic rise in the number of filings of [AD and CVD] petitions.” Although the number of new AD and CVD petitions filed in FY 2021 was far less than the number of new petitions filed in FY 2020, the historic rise in the number of AD and CVD petitions filed over the last several years has resulted in substantial increased activity at the agency through administrative reviews of recently implemented AD and CVD orders, as well as other related administrative proceedings tied to the enforcement of those orders.
It is unclear whether FY 2022 will reflect a return to high numbers of AD and CVD petition filings or whether FY 2021 is a harbinger for the near future. However, through the first week of FY 2022, five AD and CVD petitions have already been submitted to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission – more than twice the total number of petitions filed during the entirety of the fourth quarter of FY 2021.
