The US Department of Commerce (DOC) today released its preliminary determinations in the antidumping duty investigations of mattresses imported from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. The preliminary dumping margins range from 2.61 to 989.20%, depending on the country and the producer or exporter from a given country.
The country-specific dumping margins are as follows:
COUNTRY
DUMPING RATES
Cambodia
252.74%
Indonesia
2.61%
Malaysia
42.92%
Serbia
13.65%
Thailand
572.56%-763.28%
Turkey
20.03%
Vietnam
190.79%-989.9%
DOC’s antidumping findings will go into effect once its preliminary determination is published in the Federal Register, which is expected to occur within approximately 5-7 business days from today. At that time, US Customs and Border Protection (Customs) will suspend *liquidation of all future entries of mattresses imported from the countries listed in the chart above and collect cash deposits of estimated antidumping duties in the amounts noted above from the US importer of record for such entries.
In its public announcement today, DOC did not disclose whether it had found “critical circumstances” to exist in any of these cases. The formal written decision in these cases will likely be released in several days, and that may provide further details on that topic. By way of background, these investigations commenced after seven US mattress manufacturers and two unions representing workers at US mattress plants filed antidumping petitions with both DOC and the US International Trade Commission (USITC) on March 31, 2020 alleging that imports of mattresses from the above countries were being sold in the United States at unfair prices and were causing material injury to the US mattress industry.
On the same day, the petitioners also filed a countervailing duty investigation with regard to mattresses from China. On September 11, 2020, DOC found China was providing unfair subsidies to its mattress producers and imposed countervailing duties of 97.78% to offset those subsidies.
DOC formally initiated its investigations on April 24, 2020, and the USITC announced the results of its preliminary affirmative injury determinations in these cases on May 14, 2020.
*Customs term that describes the final step in the importation process when Customs finalizes and the importer pays the total amount of duties and other charges owed on an entry of imported goods. When final payment occurs, Customs liquidates the entry. If DOC finds dumping has occurred, however, the liquidation process is suspended. As a result, the total duties owed (if any) on a specific entry become a contingent liability for the importer and will not be known for months, and sometimes years, after importation has occurred.
