What's New About a New Methodology for Targeted Dumping? Impacts of the US Discretionary Practice on Margins of Dumping in Anti-Dumping Investigation

Abstract

Targeted dumping now seems to be a normal part of the United States anti-dumping investigations. While the United States has stopped invoking the zeroing in all review proceedings as well as in original investigations, however, it continues to use the zeroing practice for the ‘weighted average to transaction’ comparison methodology under the targeted dumping circumstances. This article examines the effect of targeted dumping on dumping margins in the United States anti-dumping investigations. We find that the targeted dumping relates to foreign firms which are assigned smaller dumping margins. Markedly, there are slight differences between dumping margins established by targeted dumping and those that are not. Such difference leads to more affirmative findings of dumping and thereby imposes an excessive burden on defense in subsequent reviews to exporters. The article also addresses the impacts of other US discretionary practices on margins of dumping through the regression analysis and confirms that the US implementation of the anti-dumping system is still useful as a potent trade policy seeking protection as it has always been.