India Tile Tariff Decision Unfair: U.S. Coalition
NEW YORK – A division of the U.S. Department of Commerce made several errors in its recent decision on tariffs involving ceramic tile imports from India, according to legal documents filed here earlier this week.
The complaint, filed June 23 by the Coalition for Fair Trade in Ceramic Tile (CFTCT) at the U.S. Court of International Trade, alleges that the International Trade Administration (ITA) didn’t follow established procedures in its investigation of two Indian tile producers.
The documents follow an initial filing on May 23 alerting the U.S. government of the coalition’s intent to seek action from the court.
The suit targets the finding of the ITA in April that, after investigating data from tile producers Antiqua Minerals and Win-Tel Ceramics Pvt. Ltd., there is no evidence of below-fair-value selling, or dumping, of ceramic tile from India.
The ITA routinely reviews data from a short list of exporting producers in any unfair-trade investigation, such as the recent review of Indian quartz-surface tariffs.
In the complaint filed this week, the CFTCT alleges that the ITA strayed didn’t follow standard practices by excluding data from some affiliates of Antiqua and Win-Tel.
The CFTCT also claims that the ITA received and used information from the two companies after the standard deadlines.
The complaint also alleges the ITA gave Win-Tel an offset to allow for scrap during production, even though reports from the company indicated it didn’t normally track scrap amounts.
“As we previously noted, by statute, Commerce is time-limited in its investigation, at a time when more trade remedy actions were launched than at any other point in Commerce’s history,” said Eric Astrachan, CFTCT executive director. “We are truly sympathetic to the obstacles Commerce investigators faced, but we firmly believe Commerce didn’t have all the facts at hand to decide this case.”
“In particular, for their own financial well-being, we want the importer and distributor community to be aware that any finding resulting in an anti-dumping tariff should be retroactive to April 23, 2025.”
“That tariff may be substantial,” noted Andrew Whitmire, trade data analyst for the Tile Council of North America. “Anyone tracking the world prices for ceramic tile knows that once Commerce has all the requisite information, a dumping tariff is entirely possible.”
The federal court has yet to assign a judge or schedule the CFTCT’s complaint on its docket.