AD/CVD on Chinese-Origin Golf Carts Will End Imports Entirely, Exporter Says
In a complaint filed Oct. 8, exporter Tao Motor challenged the International Trade Commission’s affirmative injury and critical circumstances findings regarding golf carts from China. It said that imposing the Commerce Department’s recently calculated antidumping duty and countervailing duty rates would end all importation of Chinese-origin golf carts into the U.S. (Tao Motor v. United States, CIT # 25-00199).
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Regarding the injury determination, the exporter said that the ITC ignored both the fact that rising demand increased sales by both domestic producers and importers and that the importers’ sales “had virtually no impact on the domestics’,” it said.
The commission also failed to consider differences in levels of trade between imported and domestic golf carts, the exporter said, and didn’t properly analyze pricing changes during the review period.
As for the critical circumstances finding, Tao said the commission didn’t consider that the golf cart imports also face Section 301 and International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs. Those other tariffs would prevent importers from increasing Chinese-origin golf cart purchases in early 2025 even in the lead-up to the AD/CVD duties, it said.
And those other tariffs, combined with Commerce’s “extremely high” AD and CVD rates -- ranging from 119% to 478% and 31% to 679%, respectively -- “certainly would prevent importers from importing any more subject merchandise,” it said.