The U.S. Dept. of Commerce recently ruled that certain hardwood plywood products and veneered panels imported from Vietnam are actually sourced from China, circumventing antidumping duties, resulting in them now being subject to tariffs as high as 200 percent.
“Commerce preliminarily determines that certain hardwood plywood products and veneered panels exported from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which were assembled in Vietnam using hardwood plywood inputs sourced from the People’s Republic of China, are products of China and are subject to the antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) orders,” Commerce wrote in the Federal Register.
The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood, which petitioned the DOC to launch an investigation in 2020, called the ruling a victory.
“The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood, which includes many Decorative Hardwoods Assn. members, recently won an important victory in their trade cases against unfair imports from Vietnam, which have been surging in recent years,” said Keith A. Christman, DHA president. “Public data suggests that plywood covered under this finding and subject to duties may be up to 60 percent of all hardwood plywood imported from Vietnam.”
The ruling covers (1) face/back veneers and assembled core components (e.g., veneer core platforms) manufactured in China; (2) fully assembled veneer core platforms manufactured in China and face/back veneer produced in Vietnam or third countries; (3) multi-ply panels of glued core veneers manufactured in China and combined in Vietnam to produce veneer core platforms and combined with either face and/or back veneer produced in China, Vietnam, or a third country; (4) face/back veneers and individual core veneers produced in China; and (5) individual core veneers manufactured in China and processed into a veneer core platform in Vietnam and combined with face/back veneer produced in Vietnam or a third country.
–This article originally printed in Furniture Today
