When most people think about the forefront of the international trade of manufactured goods between U.S. and China, it is usually high-value and patent-protected goods that come to the top-of-mind.  Rarely, if ever, might one think that the humble twist tie would be at the center of a paradigm shift in the world of international trade.  Yet that has been exactly the situation during 2020 with the U.S. Commerce Department through the International Trade Administration granting Bedford Industries a 122.5% tariff on Chinese imported twist ties in November[1]. 

What has made this case so transformative in the world of international trade is that the antidumping and countervailing duties were granted on the grounds that China has manipulated its currency, thereby allowing imported twist ties to be sold at Less-Than-Fair Value (LTFV) in part because China was determined in a November 2, 2017 publication involving aluminum foil to be a Non-Market Economy.  The greater ramifications of the twist tie ruling is that it opens the door to a very wide range of imported goods being subject to antidumping (AD) and countervailing duties (CVD) in the future since currency manipulation affects the prices of virtually all goods produced in the country in which the manipulation occurs.  Goods that are priced at LTFV can fall afoul of section 732(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930.

More information about this groundbreaking ruling can be obtained through the Federal Register of the National Archives at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/27/2020-16233/twist-ties-from-the-peoples-republic-of-china-initiation-of-less-than-fair-value-investigation#footnote-28-p45163