The former “Nails Test” method for identifying whether a company engaged in targeted dumping was wholly replaced by a two-staged test known as the Differential Pricing Analysis. Beginning in March, 2013 with the Xanthan Gum cases from China and Austria, the Department has applied this new methodology over 50 times with interesting results.

What appears simple on the surface is, in fact, not very simple at all. As a result, the road to understanding, let alone mastering, these calculations can be daunting.

The deficit for petroleum products has declined by approximately $41 billion while the deficit for non-petroleum products has expanded by approximately $10 billion. This suggests that increased U.S. production of energy, not improved productivity or in-sourcing, is the main driver of the change in U.S. trade flows thus far in 2013.

On November 13, 2013, U.S. producer USEC prevailed in a sunset case involving low-enriched uranium imports from France, keeping antidumping duties in place for at least five more years, with a 3-1 win at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

On 23 September 2013, the World Bank released its latest per capita Gross National Income (GNI) rankings for calendar year 2012. Countries that are “close” to China in per capita GNI (i.e., in reasonable proximity to the band fixed by the current surrogate countries) include the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Mexico.

In November of 2012 the U.S. International Trade Commission found that the U.S. solar industry was materially injured by imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from China. The duties have had a discernible effect on both imports from China and from the rest of the world.

The countries cited in the petition are China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Sweden, and Taiwan.

According to China’s official Xinhua news agency, the government will refund 50 percent of solar producers’ value added tax from October 1, 2013 through December 31, 2015 in order to prop up the struggling sector.