Mexico applies 81 countervailing duties
The Ministry of Economy imposed five definitive countervailing duties and extended 12 more, with which 81 duties were in force as of June 2022, 14% more compared to the beginning of this administration in December 2018.
In general, countervailing duties are tariffs applied to imported goods under conditions of price discrimination or subsidy in their country of origin, as established in the Foreign Trade Law.
Thus, the administration of these quotas reestablished the conditions of fair competition for domestic production.
From September 2021 to June 2022, the Mexican government initiated an investigation for unfair international trade practices, in its modality of price discrimination to ferromanganese from India. In addition, it initiated six sunset reviews and one countervailing duty review.
The 81 countervailing duties referred to at the beginning consider those corresponding to the importation of chicken leg and thigh from the United States, polyester texturized textile filament from China and India, triethanolamine from the USA and ammonium sulfate from China and the United States, whose application is suspended.
Countervailing duties
As of September 29, 2021, the countervailing duty imposed on imports of texturized textile filament polyester from China and India was waived for one year. This was due to the actions taken to address the sanitary contingency caused by Covid-19, which caused the textile industry to suffer negative effects in all its performance indicators.
Likewise, the countervailing duty imposed on imports of triethanolamine from the United States continued without application until the supply of ethylene oxide is regularized so as not to affect consumers of triethanolamine.
The federal government also highlighted 21 quotas pertaining to steel products originating in China, 5% more compared to December 2018.
In order not to interrupt the defense of national production, the deadlines in the investigations for unfair international trade practices continued during the sanitary contingency derived from the pandemic associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The countervailing duty imposed on imports of ammonium sulfate from China and the United States was suspended for six months as of May 25, 2022, due to the fact that the global supply chains of fertilizers and fertilizer inputs (including ammonium sulfate) have not yet overcome the post-pandemic effects. This situation caused an exponential increase in prices.
