TRADE REMEDIES | 2026-09-19

Commerce Sets a 66.61% Preliminary Countervailing Duty on Chinese Tin Mill Products — and Makes It Retroactive 90 Days

A critical circumstances finding published September 15, 2026 reaches entries made three months before the determination, so importers who cleared cans and tinplate this summer are already exposed.

Most trade remedy determinations are a forward-looking problem: a rate attaches, cash deposits begin, and importers adjust. The preliminary countervailing duty determination on tin mill products from China does something harder to plan around. Commerce paired a 66.61 percent preliminary rate with an affirmative critical circumstances finding, which pulls the duty back to merchandise entered 90 days before the notice published on September 15, 2026. Entries that cleared cleanly in June and July a

What Commerce Decided

On September 15, 2026, the Department of Commerce published its preliminary affirmative countervailing duty determination in the investigation of tin mill products from the People's Republic of China, case number C-570-229. The preliminary subsidy rate is 66.61 percent, applied to Shougang Holding Trade (Hong Kong) Ltd., Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., and to all other exporters and producers not individually examined.

The 66.61 percent figure is based on adverse inferences. When a mandatory respondent does not provide the information Commerce requests, the agency may rely on facts otherwise available with an adverse inference — the practical result being a rate drawn from the least favorable information on the record rather than from the respondent's own books. An all-others rate that equals an adverse-inference rate is a signal worth reading: it means the record was not developed through cooperative respondents, and the rate is unlikely to soften without new participation.

The period of investigation is January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. Cash deposits began upon publication. Commerce has scheduled the final determination for no later than November 30, 2026.

The Critical Circumstances Finding Is the Real Problem

Commerce also made an affirmative critical circumstances determination as to Shougang Holding, Shougang Jingtang, and all other exporters or producers not individually examined.

A critical circumstances finding changes the arithmetic of the case. Ordinarily, suspension of liquidation and cash deposits begin on the date the preliminary determination publishes. With critical circumstances, Commerce directs suspension of liquidation for merchandise entered for consumption on or after 90 days before publication. Entries that were made, cleared, and in many cases already sold through are pulled back into the measure.

The purpose of the provision is to stop importers from racing merchandise into the country ahead of a known duty. The effect on a particular importer does not depend on whether they were racing. An importer who simply kept a normal ordering pattern through the summer is covered the same way as one who front-loaded.

Which Products Are Covered

The scope covers tin mill flat-rolled products coated or plated with tin, chromium, or chromium oxides — the family that includes tinplate and tin-free steel, also called electrolytic chromium-coated steel. These are the input materials for food and beverage cans, aerosol containers, paint and chemical packaging, closures, and a range of industrial applications.

The scope contains an exclusion for certain single-reduced electrolytically chromium-coated steel tape meeting all seven specified requirements. Exclusions written that way — a list of conjunctive criteria — are narrow by design. A product satisfying six of seven is inside the scope, not outside it, and an importer relying on an exclusion should be able to document every element rather than the general character of the goods.

Scope questions in this area are frequently closer than they look. Coating chemistry, reduction method, gauge, and temper can each decide the answer, and the description on a commercial invoice is rarely precise enough to resolve it.

Why This Compounds With Section 232

Tin mill products sit in a part of the tariff schedule already carrying Section 232 steel exposure. Countervailing duties do not replace Section 232 duties; they are assessed in addition. An importer modeling only the 66.61 percent will understate the landed cost.

The same caution applies to the derivative-article expansions moving through the Section 232 inclusions process, which have been reaching further into downstream steel goods. A can or closure that is outside a Section 232 measure today may not be next quarter, and a product already inside one now also carries a trade remedy rate.

What California Importers Should Do This Month

Identify exposure by entry date, not by order date. The retroactive window runs from entries made on or after 90 days before September 15, 2026. Pull the entry summaries, not the purchase orders — what matters is when merchandise was entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse.

Confirm scope before assuming coverage or exclusion. Obtain mill certificates and coating specifications. Where the answer is genuinely uncertain, a scope ruling request to Commerce produces a determination that can be relied on, which an internal conclusion cannot.

Check the bond. Retroactive suspension can create liability well beyond what a continuous bond was sized for. Sureties reassess quickly when a critical circumstances finding lands in a client's product area, and an insufficient bond can stop entries independently of the duty question.

Review contracts for who bears the duty. Whether a retroactive assessment falls on the importer or can be passed back to the supplier is a contract question. It is worth answering now rather than when the bill arrives after liquidation.

Do not treat the preliminary rate as final. Case briefs are due 30 days after publication, and the final determination is scheduled for no later than November 30, 2026. The rate can move, and an importer with a real commercial stake can participate in the proceeding rather than watch it.

Where the Case Can Still Be Influenced

A preliminary determination is not the end of the administrative record. Interested parties — including importers and downstream users, not only domestic producers and foreign exporters — may file case and rebuttal briefs and may request a hearing. If a subsequent International Trade Commission determination on injury is negative, the investigation terminates and cash deposits are refunded.

Companies whose margins depend on this input often assume the proceeding belongs to the mills. It does not. The record Commerce and the Commission build is the record the parties put in front of them.

How Trembach Law Helps

Trembach Law advises importers, distributors, and manufacturers on antidumping and countervailing duty exposure — scope analysis and scope ruling requests, critical circumstances and retroactive liability, cash deposit and bond questions, participation in Commerce and ITC proceedings, and appeals to the U.S. Court of International Trade. Attorney Anatolii Trembach is admitted to practice before the Court of International Trade, so a matter that moves from the administrative record into litigation stays with the same counsel.

The firm is based in Calabasas, serves importers at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and represents importers nationwide.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice. Whether a particular product falls within the scope of a trade remedy proceeding depends on its specific characteristics, and no outcome is guaranteed.

Contact Trembach Law Firm at (818) 514-7680 for a confidential consultation.

Trembach Law Firm | 27001 Agoura Road, Suite 350, Calabasas, CA 91301