The much-anticipated Preliminary Countervailing Duty on a wide range of Canadian softwood lumber product exports into the US became known last week, but the announcement created more questions than it answered.
Forest operators in the north scrambled to all available sources for answers about changes to paperwork and any new mechanism at the border, while those in the US tried to find out as much as they could about the effect of that for themselves.
Canada US Softwood Lumber Duty 2017 Documents
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On Thursday afternoon of last week was held the British Columbia NAWLA regional meeting, featuring a panel of experts to explain the CVD announcements, it’s implication, technical details for operators with US Customs, Canada’s strategy going forward, and other updates.
Jason Fisher, Associate Deputy Minister, Forest Sector at Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, for the Province of BC explained some important differences between this current round, Softwood Lumber V, and the other lumber trade disputes.
“Previously the countervailing duty was arrived at as an industry aggregate, this time it is company-specific,” said Fisher. “The ‘all others’ rate is a weighted average of the range announced for the five individual companies. “There will be retroactive CVD and new anti-dumping invoices this summer.
“On April 28 there will be CVD invoices on new shipments. There is a gap period after four months, so the end of August, meaning there will be no CVD from September to December 30. However any AD would continue.
“The final determinations will be announced in November,” added Fisher.
US Softwood Lumber Duty on Canadian Imports 2017
“The final duty decision will be in December.
“Final duty payments will be known January 2018, and that is also when Canada will be in a position to appeal to the WTO and table evidence,” concluded Fisher.
US CUSTOMS INVOICES AS OF APRIL 28, 2017
As well, Madison’s reached out Thursday morning to intrepid US Customs Broker Mike Jones, for more tangible details on changes to the mechanism at the border for Canadian operators shipping wood into the US starting Friday.
During the week, as this confusion unfolded, Madison’s looked at some lumber price history to try to get a better understanding of these new market conditions for Canadian and US industry.
In an email explaining to clients Wednesday, Jones detailed, “The DOC’s official announcement with regard to Scope Inclusions, other than the understood dimensional lumber, is still only including the language; square cut box spring frame, pallet, door and window frame, and truss “components” and “parts”, not such articles when imported unassembled as allowed under title 19 CFR GRI2(a). However, they continue to include the HTSUS classification codes for such unassembled articles, as well as edge-glued lumber (4421.99.9400), but not the actual commodity; edge-glued lumber. Again, the DOC indicates these articles’ description is dispositive, not the HTSUS classification code. Edge-glued , as a description, is not included, but it’s classification code is, and the edge-glue classification code is specific to edge-glued lumber only, not like other codes that encompass a number of product descriptions.”
Jones replied to a Madison’s email Thursday morning, “The biggest unknowns impacting companies wanting to export at this time are;
• What articles will be included in the Federal Register publication, i.e., unassembled pallet, door and window frames, fence pickets, etc.
“From our experience, there are still a number of companies who were still using the $500.00 CAP for their Export Prices, which would have to be questions and resolved as part of U.S. Customs’ process to determine the duties applicable.”
This is the situation as it stood at time of printing Friday morning; Madison’s will have more updates next week on what happened April 28 onward.
For more tangible details, Mike can be reached at:
Jones & Jones Customs Brokers & Trade Consultants Michael D. Jones, President – CHB – Inactive Marine NCO
Blaine Phn: 360-332-6090 or 888-536-5079
J&J Website: www.joneschb.com
Cargo Tracking: www.smartborder.com
Filer Code: WQO (Whiskey-Queen-Oscar)