Steel Wire Garment Hangers From the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Initiation of Circumvention Inquiries of the Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-918, A-552-812, C-552-813]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Steel Wire Garment Hangers From the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Initiation of Circumvention Inquiries of the Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In response to a request from a domestic interested party, M&B Metal Products Co., Inc. (the requester), the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) is initiating country-wide circumvention inquiries to determine whether imports of steel wire garment hangers (hangers) completed in Cambodia using components manufactured in the People's Republic of China (China) or the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnam) are circumventing the antidumping duty (AD) order on hangers from China, or the AD and countervailing duty (CVD) orders on hangers from Vietnam. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable August 12, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Samuel Frost, AD/CVD Operations, Office V, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: 202-482-8180. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On June 17, 2024, pursuant to section 781(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), and 19 CFR 351.226(i), the requester filed circumvention inquiry requests alleging that hangers completed in Cambodia using: (1) steel wire and/or (2) steel wire and paper accessories, produced in China or Vietnam are circumventing the AD order on hangers from China or the AD and CVD orders on steel hangers from Vietnam, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and accordingly, should be covered by the scope of the <E T="03">China Order</E> and the scope of the <E T="03">Vietnam Orders.</E> <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On July 17, 2024, Commerce extended the deadline to initiate this circumvention inquiry by 15 days in accordance with 19 CFR 351.226(d)(1). <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Requester's Letter, “Circumvention Inquiry Request,” dated June 17, 2024 (Circumvention Request). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Notice of Antidumping Duty Order: Steel Wire Garment Hangers from the People's Republic of China,</E> 73 FR 58111 (October 6, 2008) ( <E T="03">China Order</E> ); <E T="03">see also Steel Wire Garment Hangers from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 78 FR 8105 (February 5, 2013); and <E T="03">Certain Steel Wire Garment Hangers from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Countervailing Duty Order,</E> 78 FR 8107 (February 5, 2013) (collectively, <E T="03">Vietnam Orders</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Extension of Time to Determine Whether to Initiate Circumvention Inquiry,” dated July 17, 2024. </FTNT> On August 1, 2024, January 10, 2025, and February 19, 2025 Commerce issued supplemental questionnaires to the requester. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> On December 10, 2024, January 23, 2025, and July 7, 2025, the requester responded to Commerce's supplemental requests for information, respectively. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.226(d)(1), the 30-day time period for Commerce to determine whether to accept or reject the request and whether to initiate or not initiate a circumvention inquiry began on July 7, 2025. We received no comments on these requests. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Commerce's Letters, “Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated August 1, 2024, “Second Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated January 10, 2025, and “Third Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated February 19, 2025. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Requester's Letters, “Response to Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated December 10, 2024, “Response to Second Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated January 23, 2025, and “Response to Third Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated July 7, 2025. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Orders</HD> The merchandise covered by the scope of the <E T="03">China Order</E> and the <E T="03">Vietnam Orders</E> is hangers from China and Vietnam, respectively. For a complete description of the scope of the <E T="03">China Order</E> and the <E T="03">Vietnam Orders,</E> see the Circumvention Initiation Checklists. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Checklists, “Steel Wire Garment Hangers from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Circumvention Initiation Checklist” and “Steel Wire Garment Hangers from the People's Republic of China: Circumvention Initiation Checklist,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (collectively, Circumvention Initiation Checklists). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Merchandise Subject to the Circumvention Inquiries</HD> These circumvention inquiries cover hangers completed in Cambodia using: (1) steel wire and/or (2) steel wire and paper accessories produced in China or Vietnam that are then subsequently exported from Cambodia to the United States. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Initiation of Circumvention Inquiries</HD> Section 351.226(d) of Commerce's regulations states that if Commerce determines that a request for a circumvention inquiry satisfies the requirements of 19 CFR 351.226(c), then Commerce “will accept the request and initiate a circumvention inquiry.” Section 351.226(c)(1) of Commerce's regulations, in turn, requires that each circumvention inquiry request allege “that the elements necessary for a circumvention determination under section 781 of the Act exist” and be “accompanied by information reasonably available to the interested party supporting these allegations.” The requester alleged circumvention pursuant to section 781(b) of the Act, which pertains to merchandise completed or assembled in other foreign countries. Section 781(b)(1) of the Act provides that Commerce may find circumvention of an AD or CVD order when merchandise of the same class or kind subject to the order is completed or assembled in a foreign country other than the country to which the order applies. In conducting a circumvention inquiry under section 781(b)(1) of the Act, Commerce relies on the following criteria: (A) merchandise imported into the United States is of the same class or kind as any merchandise produced in a foreign country that is the subject of an AD or CVD order; (B) before importation into the United States, such imported merchandise is completed or assembled in another foreign country from merchandise which is subject to the order or is produced in the foreign country that is subject to the order; (C) the process of assembly or completion in the foreign country referred to in section (B) is minor or insignificant; (D) the value of the merchandise produced in the foreign country to which the AD or CVD order applies is a significant portion of the total value of the merchandise exported to the United States; and (E) the administering authority determines that action is appropriate to prevent evasion of such order. In determining whether the process of assembly or completion in a foreign country is minor or insignificant under section 781(b)(1)(C) of the Act, section 781(b)(2) of the Act directs Commerce to consider: (A) the level of investment in the foreign country; (B) the level of research and development in the foreign country; (C) the nature of the production process in the foreign country; (D) the extent of production facilities in the foreign country and (E) whether or not the value of processing performed in the foreign country represents a small proportion of the value of the merchandise imported into the United States. However, no single factor, by itself, controls Commerce's determination of whether the process of assembly or completion in a third country is minor or insignificant. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> Accordingly, Commerce will evaluate each of these five factors, depending on the totality of the circumstances of the particular circumvention inquiry. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Statement of Administrative Action Accompanying the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, H.R. Doc. No. 103-316, Vol. 1 (1994), at 893. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> <E T="03">Uncovered Innerspring Units from the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Circumvention of the Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 83 FR 65626 (December 21, 2018), and accompanying Issues and Decision Memorandum at 4; <E T="03">see also, e.g.,</E> <E T="03">Certain Corrosion-Resistant Steel Products from the Republic of Korea and Taiwan: Initiation of Anti-Circumvention Inquiries on the Antidumping Duty and Countervailing Duty Orders,</E> 83 FR 37785 (August 2, 2018); <E T="03">Carbon Steel Butt-Weld Pipe Fittings from the People's Republic of China: Initiation of Anti-Circumvention Inquiry on the Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 82 FR 40556, 40560 (August 25, 2017); and <E T="03">Certain Corrosion-Resistant Steel Products from the People's Republic of China: Initiation of Anti-Circumvention Inquiries on the Antidumping Duty and Countervailing Duty Orders,</E> 81 FR 79454, 79458 (November 14, 2016). </FTNT> In addition, section 781(b)(3) of the Act sets forth additional factors to consider in determining whether to include merchandise assembled or completed in a foreign country within the scope of an AD or CVD order. Specifically, Commerce shall take into account such factors as: (A) the pattern of trade, including sourcing patterns; (B) whether the manufacturer or exporter of th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━