A Study On The Act Of America To Apply The Countervailing Duty Provisions To Non-market Economy Countries

The countervailing law of America is the first set of domestic law about countervailing in the world, and which has been modified and perfected all the time. Based on the various factors both at home and abroad, such as politics, economy, law, etc., the United States modified its countervailing law in March2012, the Senate and the House of Representatives of the U.S. approved the act which is applied to the countervailing duty provisions of the Tariff Act of1930to nonmarket economy countries successively, and has come into force after signed by President Obama. The bill breaks the precedents of no applying countervailing methods to non-market economy countries in the history of America, and provides a clear statutory basis for the investigation authority to apply the U.S.countervailing law to non-market economy countries. As an important trade partner of the United States, China has long been treated as a non-market economy country by America, and it has suffered the most of countervailing investigation from America by far. So in order to provide some beneficial references for China to cope with the countervailing investigation initiated by America, we need to make a series of systematic researches on the countervailing law of the United States.The article has been divided into three parts. The first part is about the legislative backgrounds and the legislative reasons of the act. This part reviews the historical development of the legislation and the practice of the the U.S. applying its countervailing law to non-market economy countries. On this basis, this part also analyses the legislative reasons of the act mainly through political, economical and legal aspects. The second part is about the main contents of the act and some problems exist in the act. This part elaborates the main contents of the Act, including the clauses of applying the American countervailing law to the non-market economy countries and the clauses of adjusting the anti-dumping duties levied on non-market economy countries’goods to avoid double remedies when anti-dumping and countervailing investigations initiated simultaneously to non-market economy countries by America. This part also demonstrates the legality of the act to apply countervailing law to non-market economy countries from international and domestic law basis, and also puts forward the problems exist in the provisions of retrospective effect and preventing double remedies; The third part is about the effects and the enlightenments of the act to non-market economy countries. This part introduces the influences of the act to non-market economy countries in detail and proposes some corresponding measures non-market economy countries should take to deal with the countervailing investigation to them initiated by the United States.