Order Code IB10148
CRS Issue Brief for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Trade Remedy Legislation:
Applying Countervailing Action
to Nonmarket Economy Countries
Updated June 1, 2005
Vladimir N. Pregelj
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

CONTENTS
SUMMARY
MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
Countervailing Duty Legislation
Countervailing Duty Investigations of Imports from Nonmarket Economy Countries
(1983-84; 1991)
1991
Court Decisions Regarding Applicability of Countervailing to NME Countries
U.S. Court of International Trade (614 F. Supp. 548-557)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (801 F. 2d 1308-1318)
Action in Congress
LEGISLATION
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Trade Remedy Legislation: Applying Countervailing Action to
Nonmarket Economy Countries
SUMMARY
Unlike antidumping (AD) legislation,
vailing law, cannot be found in nonmarket
which contains specific provisions for its
economies.
applicability to imports from nonmarket
economy (NME) countries, the countervailing
These determinations were challenged in
duty (CVD) law — although its procedure
the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT),
generally parallels that of the AD law —
which held that they were “not in accordance
contains no such provisions. While AD law
with the law,” reversed them, and remanded
provides for assessment of AD duties on
the cases to the ITA. On appeal, the U.S.
imports sold in the United States at less than
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
their fair value (as defined in the law), CVD is
reversed, and reinstated the ITA’s original
assessed on imports whose production and/or
determinations. Since this decision, the ITA
exportation is publicly subsidized in their
has not initiated any countervailing investiga-
country of origin.
tions of allegedly subsidized imports as such
from NME countries.
Initial administrative attempts in 1983 to
apply countervailing remedies to allegedly
To prevent further exemption of NME
subsidized imports from several NME coun-
economies from countervailing action (aimed
tries led to determinations by the International
particularly at China and Vietnam), legislation
Trade Administration of the Department of
specifically making such action applicable to
Commerce, the U.S. agency charged with
NME countries was introduced in several
determining whether such subsidization in fact
previous Congresses (without further action)
exists, that subsidization (“bounties” or
and has been reintroduced in the 109th Congress.
“grants”) within the meaning of the counter-
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MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Legislation to make CVD law applicable to nonmarket economy (NME) countries was
introduced in the 103rd, 104th, and 106th through108th Congresses, but saw no further action;
it was reintroduced in the 109th Congress as S. 593 and H.R. 1216. In order to assure its
consideration in the Senate, Senator Evan Bayh, an original cosponsor, on April 12, 2005,
placed a hold on the confirmation of then-Representative Rob Portman as the U.S. Trade
Representative until Senate leadership would allow a vote on S. 593; on April 27, 2005,
Senator Bayh proposed amendment S.Amdt. 568, identical with S. 593, to H.R. 3, but on
April 28, 2005, withdrew the amendment and released the hold.
Administrative determinations had been made and, in effect, judicially affirmed in the
mid-1980s that countervailing (CV) action cannot apply to imports from NME countries
because, as a matter of law, subsidization within the meaning of countervailing law cannot
be found in nonmarket economies.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS
The issue of whether countervailing action, intended to result in the levying of
countervailing duties (duties assessed on imports whose manufacture, production, or
exporting has been subsidized in their country of origin), applies to imports from nonmarket
economy (NME) countries arose in 1983-84 in connection with countervailing investigations
of two cases of alleged subsidization, one dealing with carbon steel wire rod imported from
Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the other with imports of potassium chloride (potash) from
the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Soviet Union, all of them at the
time nonmarket economy countries. In a NME, prices of goods and services tend to be set
by government authority rather than by market forces.
Countervailing Duty Legislation
At the time these investigations were initiated, the United States had in force two
countervailing duty laws. Both provided for the imposition, on imports of already dutiable
(but not duty-free) products that have been subsidized in their country of origin, of a
countervailing duty in the amount of such subsidization. While both required a determination
of the existence and amount of subsidization to be countervailed, they principally differed
operationally in that one required also a finding that the subsidized imports have caused or
threatened to cause injury to a U.S. domestic industry, and in that one, in actual practice,
applied to imports from market economy countries and the other to nonmarket economy
countries.
The earlier of the two laws (Section 303 of the Tariff Act of 1930, at the time codified
at 19 U.S.C. 1303, but since repealed) was a minimally modified version of the
countervailing law of general applicability, initially enacted by the Tariff Act of 1897, and
at the time of the two cases applied only to products of countries other than countries “under
the agreement.” (See next page.) That statute — repealed effective January 1, 1995, by
Section 261(a) of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) (P.L. 103-465) — provided
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for the levying of a countervailing duty (CVD), equal to the net amount of public or private
subsidization (defined as “any bounty or grant, however the same be paid or bestowed”)
without any need for injury determination.

Countervailing legislation with much broader country applicability (i.e., to countries
“under the Agreement”) consisted of comprehensive provisions (including detailed
procedural provisions) added by the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 (P.L. 96-39) as Subtitle
A of Title VII to the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1671-1671h).That law implemented for
the United States the provisions of the international Subsidies and Countervailing Code
agreed to in multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva in April 1979. Under this legislation, most of which
is still in force in a somewhat amended language, the assessment of a countervailing duty
required — in addition to a determination that a “country under the Agreement” or a private
entity in such country was providing “directly or indirectly, a subsidy with respect to the
manufacture, production, or exportation” of merchandise imported into the United States —
a determination that such imports have caused, or threatened with, injury an industry in the
United States, or that the establishment of an industry in the United States is thereby
materially retarded.
A “country under the Agreement” meant a country to which the GATT Subsidies and
Countervailing Code applied, or which has assumed Code-equivalent obligations with
respect to the United States, or with respect to which the President has determined that there
is an agreement with the United States containing certain relevant provisions specifically
spelled out in the statute.
In addition to repealing Section 303 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (see previous page) and
omitting subsidies from a private source as being countervailable, the Uruguay Round
Agreements Act also amended the countervailing duty law of the 1979 Act by incorporating
into it provisions comparable to those of Section 303, which do not require injury
determination in countervailing investigations of subsidized imports from countries other
than “Subsidies Agreement countries.” The latter have been defined in the same way — with
appropriate updating technical changes — as the countries under the Agreement under the
Trade Agreements Act of 1979. This version is still in effect (19 U.S.C. 1671(b)).
Countervailing Duty Investigations of Imports from Nonmarket
Economy Countries (1983-84; 1991)

1983-84. Parallel countervailing duty investigations of imports of carbon steel wire rod
imports from Czechoslovakia (Carbon steel wire rod from Czechoslovakia; Investigation
C-435-001; 48 F.R. 56419) and Poland (Carbon steel wire rod from Poland; Investigation
C-455-003; 48 F.R. 56419) were initiated on December 13, 1983, pursuant to petitions filed
with the International Trade Administration on November 23, 1983, by four U.S. steel
manufacturers. The petitions alleged that manufacturers, producers, or exporters of the
product in question in either country received public benefits within the meaning of the
countervailing law. Specifically, the petitions for countervailing action alleged that
“bounties or grants” were provided in both countries in the form of a multiple exchange rate
system, and a partial hard-currency retention program for exporters firms. In addition,
Czechoslovakia allegedly had in effect a system of industry-specific trade conversion
coefficients for the official exchange rate, and tax exemption for foreign trade earnings,
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while Poland provided price equalization payments for losses incurred due to foreign sales
below domestic prices.
Both cases proceeded in parallel, and the determinations on issues they had in common
were identical (except for a few minor, country-specific differences). Hence, page references
to the Federal Register included in this issue brief will be only those dealing with the
Czechoslovak case, unless an issue specific to one country is discussed.
In its notices of initiation of investigation, the International Trade Administration (ITA)
found both countries to be “countries not under the Agreement,” and conducted the
countervailing procedure according to provisions of Section 303, hence, without the need for
determining injury. In addition, the ITA considered both of them nonmarket economy (NME)
countries, but specifically pointed out that it had not yet resolved the question “whether the
countervailing duty law [either Section 303 or the countervailing duty provision of Title VII]
applies to nonmarket economy countries [as such].”
Although this issue had arisen almost a year earlier in connection with a CVD
investigation of textile imports from China (48 F.R. 46600), it was not resolved then because
the petition for that investigation was withdrawn by the petitioners after the initiation of the
investigation and the investigation itself was terminated (48 F.R. 55492). The issue,
however, was addressed in the preliminary determinations in the two carbon steel wire rod
cases (Czechoslovakia: 49 F.R. 6773; Poland: 49 F.R.6768). In both cases, the ITA found
that “nonmarket economy countries are not exempted per se from the countervailing duty
law,” since Section 303, by its statutory terms as well as based on its legislative history,
applied to “any country ...”
Weighing its own tentative initial literal interpretation of the country applicability of the
provision and the arguments introduced earlier in the consideration of the China textiles case
— focusing on the difference in the effects of government intervention in a market and
nonmarket economy — the ITA, however, was “dispose[d] to not exclude nonmarket ...
economies from its application without further review in each particular case.” The ITA,
consequently, had its “first opportunity to determine preliminarily whether practices by a
government of a so-called nonmarket economy country confer countervailable benefits.”
Focusing on prices as the key elements of subsidization, the ITA, in the ensuing detailed
analysis of the situation in both countries, pointed out that
[i]n nonmarket economies, central planners typically set the prices without any regard to
their economic value. As such, these prices do not reflect scarcity or abundance. For
example, when a product is scarce in a market economy, its price will increase. In a
nonmarket economy, however, the price of a scarce good will not go up unless the central
planners mandate a new, higher price. Even if we can identify an internally set price, that
price does not have the same meaning as a price in a market economy (49 F.R. 6770).
The ITA then analyzed in detail the alleged subsidization programs by determining first
whether they would confer a subsidy in a market economy and, then, whether the conclusion
would be different for a NME country. The ITA concluded preliminarily that multiple
exchange rates, currency retention schemes, trade conversion coefficients, and price
equalization payments do not confer a bounty or grant either in market or in nonmarket
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economies; that the Polish adjustment coefficient program did not constitute a bounty or
grant within the meaning of the law; and that the agency had not received sufficient timely
information on the Czechoslovak tax exemption program to make a determination. On the
basis of these findings, the ITA preliminarily determined that, while Congress did not exempt
NME countries as such from the CVD law, the alleged Czechoslovak and Polish practices
were not providing bounties or grants within the meaning of the CVD law. As the CVD law
required, the ITA continued both investigations in their final phase.
In the final phase of these two investigations, the ITA focused on the unresolved issue
of the application of the CVD law to nonmarket economy countries. In its detailed and
comprehensive final determinations in the two carbon steel wire rod cases (Czechoslovakia:
49 F.R. 19370; Poland: 49 F.R. 19374), the ITA first concluded “that Congress never has
confronted directly the question of whether the countervailing duty law applies to NME
countries.” It pointed out that Congress did not even debate, much less legislate on this
issue, either in 1974 (when the concept of nonmarket economy countries was introduced into
trade legislation and remedies were provided specifically with respect to imports from them,
and Congress also amended the CVD law) or in 1979 (when the CVD law was thoroughly
restructured, and the application of unfair-pricing remedial legislation was dealt with in
detail, but only with respect to dumping by NME countries).
The ITA found it significant that, in the Trade Act of 1974, Congress enacted remedial
provisions dealing specifically with injurious imports from “State-controlled-economy’‘’ or
“Communist”’ countries — both terms functionally equivalent to that of “nonmarket
economy” countries used in another part of the same Act — in the context of antidumping
and “market disruption” (NME-specific import-relief action) but not with respect to
countervailing action. In this, pointed out the ITA, citing the Senate report on the 1974 Act
(Senate Report No. 93-1298), Congress recognized the need for special remedial legislation
applicable to State-controlled-economy countries because traditional fair- or unfair-trade
remedies were insufficient or have proven inappropriate or ineffective because in
“State-controlled-economy countries ... supply and demand forces do not operate to produce
prices” and “because of the difficulty of [the] application [of such remedies] to products from
State-controlled economies” (cited at 49 F.R. 19373).
Likewise, in the legislative history of the thorough restructuring of the CVD law by the
Trade Agreements Act of 1979, there was nothing regarding any aspect of the application of
the CVD law to NME countries, although the Subsidies and Countervailing Code of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, implemented for the United States by that Act, in
Article 15 “explicitly permits [GATT] signatories to regulate unfairly priced imports from
NME countries under either antidumping or countervailing duty legislation” (49 F.R. 19373).
The ITA also consulted with other U.S. government and academic sources, which,
briefly, concluded that “it is ... only ‘remotely possible’ to identify and quantify subsidies in
NMEs;” “most of the analysis used thus far for ... subsidies, is entirely inapplicable. ...
Theoretically, any given sale may be subsidized or not, but since there is no market reference
point, it is idle to speak in such terms.” To one author, the countervailing duty law appears
to require identification and measurement of a resource transfer from the state to the
producer, but “this is simply not a measurable event in the typical nonmarket economy;” and
“The extent to which a nonmarket system ... can be said to be subsidising will always be
unclear” (all cited at 49 F.R. 19374).
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Claiming broad discretion in this matter earlier recognized by the judiciary the ITA
concluded (49 F.R. 19374) that a ‘bounty or grant,” within the meaning of the countervailing
duty law, cannot be found in an NME. The ITA also determined that Czechoslovakia and
Poland were NMEs, since they operated “on principles of nonmarket cost or pricing
structures so that sales or offers for sale of merchandise ... do not reflect the value of the
merchandise.” Accordingly, the ITA determined that manufacturers, producers, or exporters
in Czechoslovakia and Poland did not receive bounties or grants, and issued, effective May
7, 1984, final negative countervailing duty determinations (49 F.R. 19374 and 19378).
Shortly before the completion of the countervailing duty investigations of carbon steel
wire rod, two U.S. chemical manufacturers filed (on March 30, 1984) petitions alleging
subsidization of potassium (potash) imported from the German Democratic Republic and the
Soviet Union, whereupon the respective investigations were initiated as of’ April 26, 1984
(Potassium chloride from the German Democratic Republic; Investigation C-429-401; and
Potassium Chloride from the Soviet Union; Investigation C-461-401) (49 F.R. 18000 and
18002). Because of the subsequent determination in the carbon steel wire rod cases that
bounties or grants within the meaning of the countervailing duty law cannot be found in a
NME (and both countries were determined to be NMEs), the ITA on June 6,1984, rescinded
the two potassium chloride (potash) investigations and dismissed the relevant petitions (49
F.R. 23428).
1991. Since the conclusion of the wire rod and potash countervailing duty cases (see
next section) the ITA has not initiated any countervailing investigations of allegedly
subsidized imports from NME countries, with one specialized exception. Based on a petition
filed on October 1, 1991, the ITA, on November 13, 1991, initiated a countervailing duty
investigation of ceiling and oscillating fans imported from China (Investigation C-578-816;
56 F.R. 57616). The petitioner claimed that, while China was an NME country, “the PRC
fans sector operates substantially pursuant to market principles and that the CVD law should
apply.”
The petition was apparently based on the fact that ITA had, meanwhile, procedurally
introduced into antidumping investigations of imports from NME countries the concept of
market-oriented industry (MOI) as a means of determining whether an industry in an NME
country is sufficiently market-oriented (i.e., free from state control) to enable the ITA to use
the economic data provided by the industry itself (rather than those of a surrogate market-
economy country) in determining fair market value of the imported product subject to the
investigation.
The petitioners in the Chinese fan countervailing duty case claimed that the Chinese fan
industry was an MOI with dependable self-provided data (including those relating to
subsidization) and, hence, could objectively be subjected to a countervailing investigation.
In its preliminary investigation (57 F.R. 10011), the ITA concluded that the prices of several
inputs are not market-determined and, hence, the industry cannot be considered an MOI, but
believed that the information used as the basis for the determination should be verified and
did not rescind the investigation. In its final, more comprehensive phase of the investigation
(57 F.R. 24018), the ITA concluded that “the prices of several significant inputs are not
market-determined” and therefore “the PC fans industry is not an MOI.”... “As a result ... the
CVD law cannot be applied to the PRC fan industry” and the ITA issued final negative
determination in the case.
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Court Decisions Regarding Applicability of Countervailing to NME
Countries

Although this issue brief presents the relevant courts’ views in a highly summarized form,
it strives not to omit any of their salient points, but is also far from being a legal analysis
of such views. If the detail or a legal analysis of the judicial opinions is required, their
actual texts, identified in this brief by page references to, respectively, 614 Federal
Supplement
, or 801 Federal Reporter 2d, should be consulted; requests for their legal
analysis should be addressed to the American Law Division of the Congressional
Research Service.

U.S. Court of International Trade (614 F. Supp. 548-557). Following the ITA’s
negative determinations in the carbon steel wire rod cases and the dismissal of the potassium
chloride cases, the petitioners challenged those actions in the U.S. Court of International
Trade (CIT). The court consolidated both suits and, on July 30, 1985, held that
“countervailing duty law covers countries with nonmarket economies in light of fact that
governmental subsidies that are target of law may be found in nonmarket economies as well
as in market economies” (p. 548). The CIT reversed the carbon steel wire rod cases and
remanded them to the ITA for determinations consistent with the court’s opinion, and set
aside the rescissions of the potash cases and ordered that their investigations be resumed (p.
557).
The CIT, in its detailed opinion, addressed each of the four grounds on which the ITA
had based its determination of nonapplicability of countervailing procedure to NME
countries: (1) the view that a subsidy cannot be conferred in an nonmarket economy “because
a subsidy, by definition, means an act which distorts the operation of a [free] market” (both
italics in the original); (2) congressional “silence” on the issue and the apparent preference
for other trade remedial procedures; (3) consensus of academic opinion as to nonapplicability
of CVD law to NME countries; and (4) the ITA’s asserted broad discretion to determine the
existence or nonexistence of subsidies.
The CIT held that the ITA had made a basic error in interpreting and administering the
CVD law by concluding that, in its opinion, subsidies cannot be found in nonmarket
economies. The court emphasized that, absent clear legislative intent to the contrary, the
plain language of the CVD law must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive (p. 551). Hence,
it applies to any country and, therefore, does not allow for any per se exemptions of any
political entity, a fact that the ITA itself appears to have recognized in its determinations.
The ITA, in the court’s view, “institute[d], by administrative fiat, a major exemption
for countries with nonmarket economies” by redefining the term “subsidy” as “a distortion
of the operation [solely] of a market economy,” thereby attempting to amend the CVD law
(p. 552). Although the ITA had recognized that the CVD law did not allow for per se
exemptions (see p. 3), it claimed that countries with nonmarket economies (i.e., political
entities of a certain type) were exempt because of’ their NME status, illogically contradicting
the meaning of the CVD statute. The difficulties of the CVD law, said the CIT, are not those
of its meaning, but rather problems of measurement, which are precisely within the expertise
of the agency.” The ITA “has the authority and ability to detect patterns of regularity and
investigate beneficial deviations from those pattern — and it must do so regardless of the
form of the economy” (p. 554).
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As to the ITA’s argument that Congress’ “silence” on the applicability of the CVD law
to NME countries and its apparent preference for other remedial measures — among them
antidumping law, which does contain specific provisions dealing with NME countries — the
CIT pointed out that those measures have been established for remedying specific trade
problems other than subsidization. Moreover, said the court, Article 15 of the GATT
Subsidies and Countervailing Code, implemented for the United States by the Trade
Agreements Act of 1979, “clearly gives a country the choice of using subsidy law or
antidumping law for imports from a country with a state-controlled economy” (p. 556).
The court summarily dismissed the ITA’s recourse to the views of “economic
academia” “that the government of a country with a nonmarket economy cannot show what
amounts to favoritism towards the manufacture, production, or export of particular
merchandise. The idea violates common sense and conflicts with a rational construction of
the law” (p. 554-555).
ITA’s alleged assertion of its “broad discretion to determine the existence or
nonexistence of subsidies” (p. 550) was not specifically addressed by the court; it was,
however, irnplicitly challenged in the lengthy critique of administrative actions that, in the
court’s view, were contrary to law and, in effect, were attempts “to amend the countervailing
law ... by administrative fiat.” (p. 552).
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (801 F. 2d 1308-1318). The
U.S. government appealed the CIT decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal
District, which — focusing on the potash cases — reviewed in detail the legislative history
and development of relevant trade remedy laws and concluded that the CVD statute under
which these investigations were conducted (Section 303 of the Tariff Act of 1930) had
remained “substantially unchanged from the first general countervailing duty statute the
Congress enacted [in 1897] ....”
Since Congress had not “defined the terms ‘bounty’ and ‘grant’ as used in section 303,”
the appellate court concluded it could not “answer the question whether that section applies
to nonmarket economies by reference to the language of the statute” nor could it, on the other
hand, answer it by concluding that, on the basis of the statutory language, “Congress has not
attempted to exclude nonmarket economies from what the court believed to be the sweeping
reach of the section.” Since “[a]t the time of the original enactment there were no nonmarket
economies;(!) Congress ... had no occasion to address the issue ...” Hence, it remained for
the court to “determine, as best [it could], whether when Congress enacted the countervailing
duty law in 1897 it would have applied the statute to nonmarket economies, if they then had
existed” (p. 1314).
Based on the relevant aspects of the potash case, the appellate court concluded that the
economic incentives and benefits provided by the Soviet Union and East Germany to their
exports of potash to the United States did not constitute bounties or grants under the
applicable CVD law (p. 1314). The court also said it followed a precedent which “recognized
that the agency administering the countervailing duty law [i.e., the ITA] has broad discretion
in determining the existence of a ‘bounty’ or ‘grant’ under that law” and, further, that it could
not “say that the Administration’s conclusion that the benefits the Soviet Union and the
German Democratic Republic provided for the exports of potash to the United States were
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not bounties or grants under section 303 was unreasonable, not in accordance with the law
or an abuse of discretion” (p. 1318).
In conclusion, the Court of Appeals on September 18, 1986, vacated the CIT order
insofar it reversed the ITA’s final CVD determinations in the two wire rod cases, and
remanded them to the CIT with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdictions
(because the complaint was not timely filed). It also reversed the CIT order insofar as it set
aside the ITA’s final actions in the potash cases (p. 1318).
Action in Congress
The decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the wire rod and
potash cases triggered immediate reaction in Congress. H.R. 3 (Trade and International
Economic Policy Reform Act of 1987; introduced on January 6, 1987), as passed by the
House, in Section 157 provided for the application of the countervailing duty law to
nonmarket economy countries to the extent that a subsidy can reasonably be identified and
measured by the administering authority (the ITA). The proposed statute also contained
detailed procedural provisions, including a requirement of injury determination by the U.S.
International Trade Commission, whenever international obligations of the United States
required it (H.Rept. 100-40, Part 1, p. 389). A comparable provision, however, was not
included in the Senate version, and the House-passed language was dropped in conference
(H.Rept. 100-576, p. 628; April 20, 1988).
Bypassed in several successive Congresses, the issue of applying CVD law to NME
countries was addressed again in the 103rd and 104th Congresses. In the 103rd Congress,
Section 105 of S. 90 (Trade Enforcement Act of 1993, introduced on January 21, 1993)
expanded the definition of “countervailable subsidy” in the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended
by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (P.L. 103-465), by applying it to NME countries and
prescribing the determination of its amount by using a surrogate market-economy country
method (as used in antidumping investigations). An identical provision was included in the
104th Congress as Section 103 in S. 1148 (Economic Revitalization Act), introduced on
August 10, 1995 . Both bills died in committee.
In the 106th through 108th Congresses, identical bills (H.R. 3198 in the 106th Congress;
H.R. 784 in the 107th Congress; and H.R. 3198 in the 108th Congress) were introduced,
applying the CVD duty law to NME countries and applicable to investigations of subsidies
provided
on or after the date of the enactment of the respective act. Virtually identical bills,
but applicable to CVD investigations pursuant to petitions filed on or after the date of the
enactment of the respective act, were introduced in the 108th Congress (H.R. 3716 and S.
2212). All of these bills died in committee.
Two bills with identical operative provisions have been introduced in the 109th Congress
on March 10, 2005: S. 593 (Stopping the Overseas Subsidies Act of 2005) and H.R. 1216,
providing for application of CV duties to subsidized imports from NME countries, based on
petitions filed on after the date of the enactment of the legislation. They are pending in the
respective committees of jurisdiction.
In order to assure the consideration of the legislation in the Senate, Senator Evan Bayh,
an original cosponsor of S. 593, on April 12, 2005, placed a hold on the confirmation of
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then-Representative Rob Portman as the U.S. Trade Representative until Senate leadership
would allow a vote on S. 593; on April 27, 2005, Senator Bayh proposed amendment
S.Amdt. 568, identical with S. 593, to H.R. 3, but on April 28, 2005, withdrew the
amendment and released the hold.
LEGISLATION
S. 593 (Collins); H.R. 1216 (English)
Require application of countervailing procedure to imports from nonmarket economy
countries. Introduced March 10,2005; referred respectively to Committees on Finance, and
Ways and Means.
CHRONOLOGY
04/28/05
Senator Bayh withdrew the amendment and released the hold on
nomination.
04/27/05
Senator Bayh proposed amendment S.Amdt. 568 to H.R. 3, with
language identical with S. 593.
04/12/05
Senator Evan Bayh, an original cosponsor of S. 593, placed a hold on
Rep. Rob Portman’s nomination to be the U.S. Trade Representative,
until Senate 1eaders allow a vote on S. 593.
03/10/03
S. 593 and H.R. 1216, requiring application of countervailing procedure
to imports from nonmarket economy countries, introduced and referred,
respectively to Committees on Finance, and Ways and Means.
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