On 1 November, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) took a final decision on antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) on Canadian deliveries of softwood lumber to the USA, roughly two weeks earlier than originally announced. According to US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, the negotiations on a new Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) conducted between the USA and Canada over the last few months have failed to produce a mutually agreeable solution.
In the opinion of the DOC, Canadian exporters have been selling softwood lumber in the USA at 3.20-8.89% below the market prices. The DOC also established that Canada has been assisting domestic softwood lumber producers with subsidies of 3.34-18.19% of the invoice value. The USA has therefore decided to impose antidumping duty and countervailing duty averaging 20.83% on Canadian deliveries of lumber. This puts the combined rate of customs duty at approximately 6% below the provisional, cumulated figure of 26.75% set on 21 April and 26 June. The AD finally set for the five companies directly investigated by the DOC is also below the respective provisional rates imposed in April. The DOC’s adjustments in CVD are more substantial with reductions of up to seven percentage points.