ITC rules against Commerce duties on large aircraft from Canada

The finding from the International Trade Commission (ITC) of no domestic injury from large civil aircraft from Canada will prevent the U.S. government from moving forward with hefty duties on 100- to 150-seat planes.

   The International Trade Commission (ITC) during a mid-afternoon Friday vote struck down 79.82 percent antidumping duties and 212.39 percent countervailing duties that the Commerce Department ordered on 100- to 150-seat large civil aircraft from Canada, the ITC announced.
   U.S. Customs and Border Protection, at Commerce’s instruction, has been collecting cash deposits at those rates from importers after Commerce announced the duties Dec. 20.
   Canadian civil aircraft subject to the investigations hadn’t been imported to the U.S. at the time of the duty order, but Commerce cited in its December announcement an April 2016 press release describing the sale of about $5 billion worth of the reviewed Canadian civil aircraft to a U.S. airline.
   The antidumping and countervailing duty investigation, which was petitioned by Boeing in 2017, was both unusual and controversial since the Canadian aircraft have not yet been imported into the United States. Instead, the Commerce investigations centered on an April 2016 announcement that Canada’s Bombardier will supply its C-Series 100- to 150-seat planes to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines in a deal valued in excess of $5 billion.
   Boeing alleged in its petition to both Commerce and the ITC that these planes will be dumped on the U.S. market at less than fair value and the Canadian government provides Bombardier with unfair, export performance-based subsidies.
   The Canadian government, on the other hand, argued the petition was groundless and that the investigation “pushes beyond the boundaries of the commission’s threat of material injury analysis.”
   “Boeing’s assertion that future imports from Canada threaten to cause material injury is necessarily based on just the type of ‘speculation and conjecture’ that is prohibited under both U.S. and international law,” Canadian Ambassador David MacNaughton told the ITC during a public hearing in December.