Buchanan Announces New Trade Investigation into Imports of Unfairly Priced Wine Bottles from China, Chile and Mexico

WASHINGTON (January 2024) - On December 29, 2023, the U.S. Glass Producers Coalition, a coalition of U.S. wine bottle manufacturers and American workers, filed petitions to counter unfairly traded imports that are injuring the American wine bottle industry. The coalition filed the petitions with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) following years of significant volumes of unfairly priced imports of Chinese, Mexican, and Chilean wine bottles. The petitions allege that the Chinese, Chilean, and Mexican industries are dumping wine bottles in the United States, distorting the U.S. market and resulting in a significant loss of American jobs.

“The Chinese, Chilean and Mexican industries’ use of unfair pricing is hurting American companies and workers,” said Daniel B. Pickard, international trade and national security practice group leader at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney and lead counsel for the Glass Producers Coalition. “The domestic industry is committed to combatting these unfair trade practices and ensuring that American manufacturing is able to compete on a level playing field. Foreign countries and producers that do not abide by international trade rules must be held accountable. Trade remedy measures that we hope result from the petitions filed today aim to do just that.”

Antidumping duties aim to offset the amount a product is sold at less than fair value, or “dumped,” in the United States. The margin of dumping is calculated by the Department of Commerce. Estimated duties in the amount of the dumping are collected from importers at the time of importation. Countervailing duties are intended to offset unfair subsidies that a foreign government provides in the production of a particular good. The ITC, an independent agency, determines whether the domestic industry is materially injured or threatened with material injury by reason of the unfairly traded imports.

The Department of Commerce will determine whether to initiate the investigations within 20 days of the filing, and the ITC will reach a preliminary determination of material injury or threat of material injury within 45 days. The entire investigative process will take approximately one year, with final determinations of dumping, subsidization, and injury likely occurring in late 2024. However, duties can attach to imports of the subject wine bottles as of the time of the preliminary determinations in the case.

Led by Pickard, the Buchanan team also includes Milton Koch, Claire Webster, Amanda Wetzel, Jacob Garten and David Sessions.