Create a process for self-initiation of AD/CVD proceedings

Not started

Printed page 668 21. Department of Commerce

“Establish an effective, fair, and objective process for self-initiation of AD/CVD proceedings when industry lacks the resources or ability to act.”

What has happened

Sep 6, 2026 Not started
Nothing found. Commerce has established no process for self-initiating antidumping or countervailing duty proceedings, and self-initiated no AD/CVD investigation in the window. The Federal Register's only in-window use of the phrase 'self-initiation' is a 2025-03-31 correction notice to the 2024 annexes rule. Read again on 2026-09-06 against E&C's own publications, which is where such a process would be set out: the numbered Policy Bulletin series has no entry newer than No. 10.3 of 2010-11-26, and ITA's complete press index shows Commerce's self-initiations are all pre-window — a stainless-steel circumvention inquiry self-initiated 2020-05-12 with preliminary rulings 2020-02-10 and final rulings 2020-07-07, and scope and circumvention inquiries self-initiated 2022-02-02. So the authority is used from time to time and has been for years (19 U.S.C. 1673a(a), 1671a(a)); what the Quote asks for — a published, "effective, fair, and objective process" for deciding when to use it, for the case where industry cannot act — has not been written down, in the window or before it.
- Enforcement and Compliance Policy Bulletins — the complete numbered series, newest No. 10.3 of 2010-11-26 (as observed 2026-09-06; the page carries no date of its own, so it is dated at the observation and is approximate)
  Primary Executive branch Sep 6, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Cluster negative search E&C-1 (chapter log): Federal Register full text since 2025-01-20 for "self-initiation" (1 hit, a 2025-03-31 correction notice), "surrogate country" (73 hits, all individual AD/CVD case notices), "non-market economy" methodology (131, same), "Top Markets" (0); plus a jq pass over every in-window Federal Register record whose agency is the International Trade Administration, with the individual AD/CVD case notices filtered out. The "self-initiation" full-text search (1 hit) and "self-initiated" antidumping (3 hits, all pre-existing cases or the same correction) are the load-bearing negatives. A jq scan of every in-window ITA initiation notice found no case initiated other than on a petition.

The authority already exists (19 U.S.C. 1673a(a), 1671a(a)); the Quote asks for an “effective, fair, and objective process” for using it, and none was published.

Action: create
Object: self-initiation process for AD/CVD proceedings
ID: 1832