Blog
International Trade Commission reverses newsprint tariffs
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 08/30/2018 12:08:30
- In: General
The entire newspaper industry received a welcome boost Wednesday when the International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it has overturned the tariffs initially imposed on the importation of uncoated groundwood paper. All five ITC Commissioners agreed that importation of this paper from Canada does not injure U.S. paper mills despite the concerns of one such mill, NORPAC, located in the Pacific Northwest, that initiated this action before the ITC and the Department of Commerce.
The ITC will not release its actual opinion on this matter that will come on Oct. 8 (you will be able to find it here under the proceeding titled "Uncoated Groundwood Paper from Canada (Inv. Nos. 701-TA-584 and 731-TA-1382 (Final), USITC Publication 4822, September 2018)."). The ITC simply issued a release announcing the result Wednesday.
ASNE is proud to be a part of the STOPP Coalition that fought against these tariffs. The STOPP Coalition included not only companies and organizations from the newspaper industry, but also printers, publishers, paper suppliers and distributors. The collective efforts of this group in articulating the issue for the public via the STOPP website, collecting editorials and news stories against the tariffs and mobilizing the public to contact their legislators (and in turn, asking legislators to testify against the tariffs at a July 17 ITC hearing on this issue), were tireless. You can read a statement from the STOPP Coalition here.
The ITC decision completely overturns a recent decision of the Department of Commerce to modify (by only slightly decreasing) the original tariffs. Instead of paying up to 20 percent tariffs, these companies no longer must pay at all, and any money collected at the border during importation will now be returned to those companies. NORPAC does still have the ability to appeal the decision but hasn't indicated whether it will file an appeal.