ITC Finds Injury in Large Residential Washers Safeguard Investigation, Paving Way for Potential TRQ
The International Trade Commission reached an affirmative injury determination in its Section 201 safeguard investigation on large residential washers, the ITC announced Oct. 5. Section 201 allows the president to impose tariffs or other import restrictions on all imports of products the ITC finds to injure U.S. industry. The investigation now moves to a remedy phase, where the ITC will hold a hearing on Oct. 19 to determine what remedies should be imposed, and is expected to send the president its final report -- to include potential recommendations for remedial action -- by Dec. 4. The ITC is expected to vote on what relief to recommend to the White House to address the injury of large residential washer imports to U.S. industry, Whirlpool said in a statement. President Donald Trump will then have about two months to adopt or reject the ITC’s recommendations, or opt to set other trade restrictions.
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Whirlpool's May 31 petition to the ITC requested a three-year tariff-rate quota on imports of large residential washers assessed per country based on historical import levels for each respective country during a given period, while allowing imports of a base number of large residential washer imports without safeguard duties (see 1706120020). Any such duties would come on top of existing antidumping and countervailing duties on large residential washers from Mexico and South Korea imposed in 2013, and on China in 2017. The scope of the safeguard investigation requested by Whirlpool mirrors the scope of the AD duty order on large residential washers from China, but is not country-specific.
Though duties may apply to all countries, ITC commissioners who find injury to U.S. industry must make additional separate injury findings for certain countries with which the U.S. has free trade agreements, including Canada, Mexico, Jordan, Australia, Colombia, Korea, Panama, Peru, Singapore, the CAFTA-DR countries and Israel. The ITC made negative findings with respect to imports from these countries, the commission said.
Whirlpool Chairman Jeff Fettig in a statement called the ITC's 4-0 affirmative vote an "important win" for U.S. manufacturers and workers. "For the third time since 2013, the ITC has found that Samsung and LG engaged in unlawful conduct by violating U.S. trade laws," he said. "This vote sets the stage for the administration to put in place an effective remedy to create a level playing field for American workers and manufacturers. This type of corrective action will create U.S. manufacturing jobs."