US Supports New, Lower Rate for Brazilian Honey Exporters

Responding to petitioners’ pushback (see 2409270050) against new results on remand that saw the Commerce Department lower a Brazilian honey exporter’s antidumping duty rate from 83.72% to 10.52%, the U.S. said it supports the results (Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora v. United States, CIT # 22-00185).

Domestic honey producers American Honey Producers Association opposed the results because, they argued, exporter Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora, known as Supermel, should have continued to receive adverse facts available for its failure to reconcile costs with two of its beekeepers.

But “Commerce determined ‘that the complete reconciliation of Supermel’s data to its suppliers’ reported data is immaterial to the analysis of Supermel’s data, based on other reliable and verifiable evidence on the record,’” the U.S. said.

The Court of International Trade “expressly stat[ed]” that the remand results had to be “based on the existing record,” meaning that the application of AFA -- or any facts available, adverse or neutral -- wasn’t called for, it said. What the producers are really arguing is essentially “that this Court’s remand order ‘simply got it wrong,’” it said.

The producers also complained that the remand results didn’t adequately explain the change, but Commerce doesn’t have to address all the evidence presented by the parties, it said. The U.S. also argued that the American Honey Producers Association was “vague as to the ‘numerous arguments’ that Commerce allegedly failed to address.”