Cash deposits of up to 100.95 percent have been due on Chinese truck bed covers since the end of July, and the dumping half of the case has not reported yet
The money started moving before the case did.
Since 31 July, United States Customs and Border Protection has been collecting cash deposits on truck bed covers imported from China, at rates Commerce set in a preliminary determination that day: 30.38 percent for Changzhou Sunwood International Trading, 8.72 percent for Hangzhou Golden Sun Auto Parts, and 20.25 percent for everybody not individually examined. Six other companies drew 100.95 percent, a figure Commerce says rests on facts available with adverse inferences, which it applied after finding that "one or more respondents did not act to the best of their ability" in answering its requests for information.
That is the subsidy case only. The dumping case has not reported.
What the Commission filed on Friday
The International Trade Commission issued a notice on 5 August, filed for publication two days later, scheduling the final phase of both investigations. The hearing begins at 9.30 a.m. on 15 October. The prehearing staff report goes into the nonpublic record on 1 October, prehearing briefs are due on 8 October, posthearing briefs on 22 October, and final comments on 6 November.
The petitions were filed on 25 February by RealTruck, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The scope is wider than the cover
A truck bed cover, for these purposes, is a shield between 45 and 75 inches wide and 55 and 100 inches long that spans the open top of a pickup bed. Folding, roll-up, one-piece and retractable versions are all in.
So is the hardware, provided it arrives with the cover and on the same invoice: rails, canisters, latches, straps, clasps, clamps, nuts, bolts, washers, screws, hitch pins, weather strips, locks, struts, drain tubes, motors. A mounting or installation kit entered separately is covered on its own account. Truck caps are out, and the notice draws that line at an enclosure that raises the bed by at least 12 inches. Anything already inside the two 2011 orders on aluminium extrusions from China is out as well.
Two paragraphs that do not agree
The notice says both that the antidumping preliminaries are pending and that they were affirmative.
Its summary states that Commerce's preliminary determinations on less-than-fair-value sales "are pending." Its background paragraph, five sentences later, describes the final phase as being scheduled as a result of affirmative preliminary determinations that subsidies are being provided and that the product is being sold below fair value.
Only one of those determinations exists. Commerce published the subsidy one on 31 July. The antidumping side has been postponed twice, most recently by 50 days on 14 July, and is now due no later than 23 September. The Commission's own April notice explains why the case can proceed anyway: it schedules the final phase on notice of an affirmative preliminary determination under section 703(b) or section 733(b), and one is enough.
The order of operations
Deposits first, hearing in October, dumping margin in September. Duties are being collected from importers on a determination that is preliminary in both senses, made partly on adverse inferences, and subject to a final Commission vote that has not been taken.
