Xanthan Gum Exporter Tells CIT Commerce Illegally Deducted Section 301 Duties From US Price

The Commerce Department illegally deducted Section 301 China tariff duties from exporter Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co.'s U.S. price in the 2020-21 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China, Fufeng argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. Fufeng added in its seven-count complaint that Commerce improperly decided to directly value energy factors of production in its normal value calculation based on a revision of Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad's preliminary financial ratio calculations (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00068).

The complaint also alleged that Commerce violated the law by directly valuing energy coal based on Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 2701.12.9000 instead of 2701.19, capping the surrogate value assigned to Fufeng's soybean dregs, adjusting Fufeng's recommended calculation to value ocean freight, applying the Cohen's d test in its differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping and rejecting Fufeng's information on coal and parts of the exporter's rebuttal case brief.

Preliminarily, Fufeng was assigned a zero percent dumping margin and Malaysia was used as the primary surrogate country. In the final results, over Fufeng's arguments, Commerce ultimately stuck with its positions and wound up with a 17.36% dumping margin for Fufeng. Joining the exporter in filing the complaint were Shandong Fufeng Fermentation Co. and Xinjiang Fufeng Biotechnologies Co.