The Commerce Department lowered all Moroccan phosphate fertilizer exporters’ countervailing duty rates from 19.97% to 7.41% in its final redetermination on remand of the final determination in a CVD investigation. However, it refused to reverse a finding that a Moroccan government program granting reductions in tax fines and penalties was de facto specific to the investigation’s sole respondent (The Mosaic Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00116).

A Moroccan exporter argued the Commerce Department can't ask open-ended questions about whether governments provided it any “other” subsidies, in questionnaires sent during administrative reviews (OCP S.A. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00261).

A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 9, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

Russian exporter JSC Apatit took to the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's 2020-21 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on phosphate fertilizers from Russia, in which it received a 28.5% CVD rate (Joint Stock Company Apatit v. U.S., CIT # 23-00254).

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in a radio interview in late December, explained that a bill he introduced with fellow Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., was "not in any way going to guarantee farmers lower fertilizer costs, but we just want to know why fertilizer prices are going up as high as they have." The bill directs USDA to detail how much fertilizer, of what types, and from what companies and countries, is imported into the U.S., and asks the department to describe the "impacts that antidumping duties and countervailing duties have on prices of fertilizer paid at the retail level."

Commerce’s countervailing duty for a Moroccan phosphate fertilizer exporter was too low because it either ignored or underestimated several benefits, a domestic petitioner said Dec 28 in the Court of International Trade (The Mosaic Company v. U.S., CIT # 23-00246).

The Commerce Department unreasonably selected data from Kazakhstan's Bureau of Natural Statistics data to use as a tier two benchmark regarding the provision of natural gas for less than adequate remuneration, countervailing duty petitioner The Mosaic Co. argued in a Dec. 28 complaint (The Mosaic Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00247).

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of Dec. 4-10, 11-17 and 18-24.

The U.S. defended its use of profit before tax in its calculation of a Russian phosphate fertilizer export company’s less-than-adequate-remuneration government subsidy, saying it was the most accurate method of calculation. It also said the Commerce Department’s countervailing duty on the exports fulfilled all the requirements of the Court of International Trade upon its second remand (The Mosaic Company v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00117).