Ikenomic Insights

The Department of Commerce published regulations  yesterday that will expand and strengthen its enforcement of the U.S. Antidumping (AD) and Countervailing Duty (CVD) Laws. I’ve been following the trade remedy laws long enough to have no reason to expect regulatory changes that produce greater balance and objectivity to their administration at the DOC, but that doesn’t mean blatant power grabs, such as the ones codified in these new rules, shouldn’t be called out for aggrandizing the administrative state and reminding us once again that the executive branch, not Congress, continues to makes trade policy by fiat . In these new regulations, DOC is – among many other things – asserting authority under the Antidumping Law and the Countervailing Duty Law to render judgment about whether different norms, practices, rules, regulations, laws, and enforcement standards in a foreign country constitute a cost of production advantage for their manufacturers and, if so, to measure the value of th