Countervailing duties on Indonesian fatty acids will now reach back to goods that entered the United States on 24 April, and one of the two named producers escapes the reach-back entirely

Duties on a shipment that cleared customs in April are now in play.

The Commerce Department has preliminarily found that critical circumstances exist, in part, in its countervailing duty investigation of fatty acids from Indonesia, in a notice that took effect on publication on Wednesday. The practical consequence is a date. Customs and Border Protection will be directed to suspend liquidation of unliquidated entries made on or after 24 April 2026, and to collect cash deposits at the preliminary subsidy rates, for goods from PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia and from all other Indonesian producers.

That date is 90 days before the department published its preliminary affirmative determination on 23 July, which is the reach-back the statute allows once critical circumstances are found.

PT Musim Mas is not covered.

Two tests, and the second one split the case

A critical circumstances finding under section 703(e)(1) of the Tariff Act requires two things at once. The subsidy has to be inconsistent with the World Trade Organization agreement on subsidies, and imports have to have been massive over a relatively short period.

The first test was met for everyone. In its July determination Commerce found two Indonesian programmes to be contingent on export: an exemption from import income tax withholding for companies in bonded zones, and an exemption from import duty on capital goods, machinery and equipment brought into those zones. Export contingency is enough on its own to satisfy that leg.

The second test is where the case divided. The regulation sets the bar at a 15 percent increase in import volume. Commerce compared each mandatory respondent's shipments from September 2025 through January 2026 against February through June 2026, placing January in the earlier period because the petition was filed in the second half of that month. For everyone else it used import statistics from the International Trade Commission's DataWeb, four months against four months, because June figures were not yet available.

Wilmar and the all-others group cleared 15 percent. Musim Mas did not.

How the numbers were assembled

Commerce said Wilmar reported sales volumes rather than the shipment volumes it had asked for, and reported them on an inconsistent basis between the two periods. It therefore relied on facts otherwise available under section 776(a) of the Act, using the sales figures but adjusting them for the difference in reporting basis.

The petition behind all of this came from Vantage Specialty Chemicals on 28 January, covering Indonesia and Malaysia. Commerce opened the countervailing duty investigations on 9 March. The critical circumstances allegation followed on 29 June, and put the increase in United States imports of Indonesian fatty acids at 24.30 percent between February and April, measured against November through January.

The period under investigation is calendar 2025.

What happens next

Nothing here is final. Commerce will issue its final critical circumstances determination at the same time as its final countervailing duty determination, and it intends to notify the International Trade Commission of the preliminary finding in the meantime.

Interested parties may argue the point in their case briefs, which are due seven days after the last verification report in the investigation. Rebuttals follow five days later. Anyone wanting a hearing has 30 days from publication to ask for one.