U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is calling on the U.S. Department of Commerce to reverse its recent decision to impose duties on special paper from Canada used in newsprint.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced Jan. 9 duties will be imposed on imports of uncoated groundwood paper from Canada as an investigation into the possible effects such a duty would have on the nation’s economy.
“This preliminary decision allows U.S. producers to receive relief from the market-distorting effects of potential government subsidies while taking into account the need to keep groundwood paper prices affordable for domestic consumers,” Ross said. “The Department of Commerce will continue to evaluate and verify the accuracy of this preliminary determination while standing up for the American business and worker.”
The Department calculated a preliminary subsidy rates for the major manufacturers of the paper: 6.09 percent for Catalyst Paper Corporation, 9.93 percent for Kruger Trois-Rivieres L.P., 4.42 percent for Resolute FP Canada Inc. and 0.65 percent for White Birch Paper Canada Company NSULC. All other producers and exporters in Canada have been assigned a preliminary subsidy rate of 6.53 percent.
Schumer sent a letter to Ross and President Donald Trump expressing his concern about how such duties could hurt the struggling newspaper industry, especially in upstate New York.
“The bottom line is that this decision will have a huge and harmful impact on newspapers in every hometown across upstate New York, so the Department of Commerce should reconsider this decision,” Schumer said. “This decision is not supported by the domestic paper manufacturing industry, so [the Department of] Commerce should find a new way forward that does not place such an unfair and unwise burden on an already at-risk and extremely vital American industry that provides so many jobs and so much value to New Yorkers from one corner of the state to the other.”
more at: https://www.hudsonvalley360.com/article/schumer-reverse-harmful-decision-ny-newspapers