Eleven farm-state Republican lawmakers from the Senate and House are asking the Commerce Department to reverse a preliminary decision that would significantly raise the countervailing duty on Russian phosphate fertilizer.
If finalized, the Commerce decision earlier this year would raise the duty on Russian phosphate from 9.19% to 53.29%, the lawmakers told Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in a letter dated Oct. 5.
GOP Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, John Boozman of Arkansas and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, along with Reps. Tracey Mann of Kansas, Austin Scott of Georgia, David Rouzer of North Carolina, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, Mary Miller of Illinois and Mark Alford of Missouri signed the letter.
“A 53.29% duty will have a detrimental impact on both the price and availability of phosphate fertilizer for American farmers, compromising productivity and competitiveness as well as global food security,” they said in the letter.
U.S. companies have been buying Russian fertilizer under the previous tariff rate of 9.19%, but lawmakers said that even the lower rate helped push supplies away from the U.S. at a time when imports are needed.
And lawmakers point to errors they say Commerce may have made in calculating the new, higher duty for Russian phosphate.
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“It’s imperative that the Commerce Department considers all available and relevant data when calculating duties,” Sen. Marshall said in a statement provided to Agri-Pulse. Exacting a higher duty would "only increase the price of fertilizer for my American farmers while farmers in places like Brazil continue to get phosphate, duty-free. We have to make sure this administration does not continue to push tariffs and policies that disproportionately hurt rural America."
The Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration is also proposing to adjust the CVD on Moroccan phosphate, but that action would lower the CVD from 19.91% to 14.49%.
“Existing duties have already shifted trade flows away from the largest sources and restricted access,” the lawmakers said. “Meanwhile, these major supplying countries continue to provide phosphate fertilizer, unencumbered, at a lower cost, to markets like Brazil that directly compete with American farmers. Should this preliminary rate be finalized at 53.29%, American farmers will likely lose access to yet another source of imported phosphate fertilizers.”
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