Trade Cases
January 17, 2019
Wait for a Ruling on Exclusion Requests Just Got Longer
Written by Sandy Williams
Don’t expect to have your Section 232 exclusion request looked at any time soon. The Commerce Department has announced that, due to the number of furloughed employees during the partial government shutdown, it will temporarily suspend processing of Section 232 exclusions.
Contingency plans at the nation’s trade offices have dramatically reduced the number of people available to handle exclusion requests as well as antidumping/countervailing duty proceedings. The International Trade Administration’s workforce of 1,530 is reduced to just 47 people, according to the agency’s shutdown contingency plan. The ITA and International Trade Commission have put preliminary and final decisions on AD/CVD cases on hold and will likely extend the deadlines in trade remedy cases.
