Briefings · Graphite

The US found Chinese anode graphite dumped and subsidized, then imposed no duties

The active anode material case cleared every step but the last one. It turned on material retardation, a test that asks whether imports are stopping an industry from getting established rather than injuring one that already exists.

Published Aug 13, 2026. Every figure below is linked to the document it comes from.

The main US trade case on battery-grade graphite ended with no tariffs.

Five domestic producers petitioned for antidumping and countervailing duties on 18 December 2024. Fifteen months later the International Trade Commission closed the case. Its determination, published 3 April 2026 at 91 FR 16968, runs to a single sentence of holding:

On the basis of the record developed in the subject investigations, the United States International Trade Commission (“Commission”) determines, pursuant to the Tariff Act of 1930 (“the Act”), that the establishment of an industry in the United States is not materially retarded by reason of imports of active anode material from China, provided for in subheadings 2504.10.10, 2504.10.50, 3801.10.50, and 3801.90.00 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, that have been found by the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) to be subsidized and sold in the United States at less than fair value (“LTFV”).

Read the end of that sentence first. Commerce had already found the imports subsidized and sold below fair value. The duties still did not issue.

Why a finding of dumping is only half a case

A US trade case has two halves and two agencies. Commerce decides whether imports are dumped or subsidized, and at what rate. The ITC decides separately whether those imports are hurting an American industry. Both answers have to come back yes. Duties follow only if they do.

Commerce’s half went the petitioners’ way, twice. Its final dumping determination and its final subsidy determination, both published 17 February 2026, set:

• Dumping margins of 93.50 percent for fourteen listed exporter and producer combinations, and 102.72 percent for the China-wide entity, the latter assigned as adverse facts available using the highest calculated petition margin.
• Subsidy rates of 66.86 percent for Panasonic Global Procurement China and for all other producers, and 66.82 percent on adverse facts available for BTR New Material Group, Shanghai Shaosheng Knitted Sweat, and Huzhou Kaijin New Energy Technology.

No importer ever paid those rates as final duties.

The case turned on an unusual injury test

Most injury findings ask whether imports are hurting an industry that already exists. This one did not. The petition alleged that imports materially retard the establishment of an industry in the United States, or in the alternative that they injure or threaten to injure one (90 FR 3792). It was the first theory, material retardation, that became operative: both the preliminary and the final ITC determinations are framed around whether the establishment of an industry was being retarded, not around injury to an existing one.

That theory carried the preliminary round. In February 2025 the Commission found a reasonable indication that establishment was being materially retarded, and the final phase began (90 FR 9163). The final vote, filed 31 March 2026, went the other way. Commissioner Jason E. Kearns dissented. The Commission’s reasoning is in USITC Publication 5719.

The petitioners are named in the institution notice (89 FR 105100) as the American Active Anode Material Producers, whose members are Anovion Technologies, Sanborn, New York; Syrah Technologies LLC, Vidalia, Louisiana; NOVONIX Anode Materials LLC, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Epsilon Advanced Materials, Leland, North Carolina; and SKI US, Inc., Marietta, Georgia. Those are the corporate addresses given in the notice. Four of the five have plants recorded here: Anovion Sanborn and Anovion Bainbridge, Syrah Vidalia, NOVONIX Riverside and NOVONIX Enterprise South, and the Birla Carbon Orangeburg plant in South Carolina, where SKI US is the DOE selectee of record.

What a negative vote does

Commerce had already written down the consequence, in the closing section of its own final dumping determination:

If the ITC determines that material injury or threat of material injury does not exist, this proceeding will be terminated, all cash deposits will be refunded or canceled, and suspension of liquidation will be lifted.

That is what happened. No antidumping duty order and no countervailing duty order issued on active anode material from China, and the cash deposits importers had posted during the provisional periods were refunded or cancelled.

A shutdown is in the timeline

Part of the fifteen months is explained by something outside the merits. The Commission tolled its own schedule mid-case, and said so in a footnote to the final notice:

Due to the lapse in appropriations and ensuing cessation of Commission operations, the Commission tolled its schedule for this proceeding. The schedule was revised in a subsequent notice published in the Federal Register on December 11, 2025 (90 FR 57484).

The hearing was held on 12 February 2026, and the determinations were filed on 31 March.

Where this sits in the record

The full lifecycle, from the December 2024 petition through the April 2026 termination, is recorded as a single policy action in the Factbook, with every step tied to its Federal Register citation. It is in the policy timeline.

One footnote to the outcome. Anovion, the petitioner listed first in the institution notice, had its largest federal award cancelled just over five months before the final vote. That is the subject of a separate briefing.