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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Commerce Department says it's investigating how it calculates anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports to see if they're too lenient.
The review is to be conducted in the next 45 days and could result in changes to the way fees are determined.
"Should the department change its policy, as the coalition believes it should and will, the dumping duties on Canadian lumber would be expected to rise substantially," said the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports. There was no immediate response from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa.
The announcement came just days after the department said it found new evidence supporting an average Canada-wide dumping rate of 8.38 per cent.
But last Friday, a NAFTA panel gave the U.S. 100 days to prove that Canadian exports threaten the American industry at all.
The panel, consisting of three Americans and two Canadians, issued a unanimous binding ruling last Friday saying the U.S. has failed to prove Canadian timber pricing has hurt U.S. producers.
The U.S. coalition says it won't be difficult to provide evidence to the NAFTA panel.
Since last spring, Canadian lumber companies have been hit with combined U.S. anti-dumping and countervailing duties that total about 27 per cent.
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