Petition Summary: Raw Honey from Argentina, Brazil, India, Ukraine, and The Socialist Republic of Vietnam

For the imposition of antidumping duties on imports of raw honey from Argentina, Brazil, India, Ukraine, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the two “Petitioners” American Honey Producers Association and Sioux Honey Association filed a petition on April 21, 2021.

Under US law, a domestic industry can petition the government to initiate an AD investigation to determine whether an imported product is sold in the United States at less than fair value (ie, dumped). AD duties may be imposed if the DOC determines that imported goods are dumped and if the ITC determines that the domestic industry is materially injured or threatened with such injury by reason of the subject imports.

The petitioners seek the imposition of antidumping (AD) duties on imports of raw honey from those countries are as below:

Vietnam: 207.08%

Argentina: 16.83% – 22.60%

India: 34.22% – 99.16%

Brazil: 114.50%

Ukraine: 10.56% – 94.84%

Scope of the Investigation

These petitions covers the merchandise like raw honey which is the honey as it exists in the beehive or as obtained by extraction, settling and skimming, or coarse straining are covered. Raw honey has not been filtered to a level that results in the removal of most or all of the pollen. The subject products include all grades, floral sources and colors of raw honey and also includes organic raw honey.

Excluded from the scope is comb honey or honey that is packaged for retail sale (e.g., in bottles or other retail containers of five (5) lbs or less).

The merchandise subject to this order is currently classifiable under statistical subheading 0409.0000.05, 0409.0000.35, 0409.0000.45, 0409.0000.56, and 0409.0000.65 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (“HTSUS”). Although the HTSUS subheadings are provided for convenience and customs purposes, the written description of the scope of this order is dispositive.

Consequences

As the result of United State's Anti Dumping investigations, the substantial duties may also be imposed, in addition to other already applicable duties and tariffs.  If the ITC and DOC make affirmative preliminary determinations, US importers will be required to post cash deposits corresponding to the ad valorem AD duty rates determined for the subject merchandise on or after the dates when the DOC’s preliminary determinations are published in the Federal Register. In certain circumstances, such duty deposit requirements can go into effect retroactively, 90 days prior to the date of publication.  The AD duties will remain in effect if the DOC and ITC make affirmative final determinations.

The DOC calculates specific AD margins for certain individual producers and exporters selected for examination.  Such rates often may be much lower than those alleged in the petition.  However, producers and exporters that do not participate in the investigations may be subject to substantially higher rates.  Duties imposed at these higher rates may force exporters to stop shipping to the United States and importers to cease importation of subject merchandise.  Thus, interested parties – including foreign producers, exporters and importers – may consider having a strategy for addressing AD investigations, including possible participation.

Under the statutory time schedule for AD investigations, the first decision – the preliminary ITC determination whether there is a reasonable indication that the US industry is materially injured or threatened with material injury by reason of the subject imports – must be made within 45 days after the filing of the petition – which in this case is June 7, 2021.  An ITC hearing (ie, a public conference) is held about 21 to 23 days after the filing date.  As a result, agency staff work – including the issuance of questionnaires to interested parties – begins almost immediately.  Thus, quick action is encouraged in order to understand the specific implications of these developments and to prepare and implement a pertinent strategy.

The petition identifies 76 exporters and 51 US importers of raw honey from Argentina, Brazil, India, Ukraine and Vietnam. Please see Attachment I. Also for the list of importers alleged by Petitioner, you may see Attachment II.