Our Analysis:

While the title may seem obscure, the issue the bill addresses has been one of recent controversy.  Effectively, this bill applies punitive trade measures to “non-market economies,” with the implied target being China.  Some sectors of American business, as well as House Republicans, have viewed Chinese trade practices as unfair in the globalized market.  Particularly, they cite the Chinese government's currency manipulation and industry subsidization.  This bill would apply certain measures to counteract these actions for products being sold in the United States.  These actions have aroused the discontent of free-trade organizations, such as the Club for Growth.  The bill has received bipartisan support, from the Democratic Ranking Member of Ways and Means Committee Sander Levin, as well as Senate supporters Democrat Max Baucus and Republican John Thune.  This legislation runs counter to recent World Trade Organization finding on the issue.

http://www.clubforgrowth.org/perm/?postID=15783
http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=12051

Summary:

3/13/2012--Public Law. (This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary of that version is repeated here.) Amends the Tariff Act of 1930 regarding the imposition of countervailing duties on imports into the United States from a country subsidizing, directly or indirectly, the manufacture, production, or export of merchandise which materially injures a U.S. industry or threatens to. Declares that merchandise on which countervailing duties must be imposed includes merchandise from a nonmarket country, unless the administering authority cannot identify and measure subsidies provided by the government of the nonmarket economy country (or a public entity within its territory) because the economy of that country is essentially composed of a single entity. Requires the administering authority to reduce the antidumping duty on a class or kind of merchandise from a nonmarket economy country in cases where: (1) such country (or a public entity within its territory) has provided the merchandise with a countervailable subsidy (other than an export subsidy); (2) the subsidy has reduced the average price of imports of that class or kind of merchandise during the relevant period; and (3) the extent to which the subsidy, in combination with the use of normal value, has increased the weighted average dumping margin for such merchandise can be reasonably estimated. Requires the administering authority, in such cases, to reduce the antidumping duty by the amount of the increase in the weighted average dumping margin estimated (but not by more than the portion of the countervailing duty rate attributable to the countervailable subsidy).

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