News Releases for September 2003
September 4, 2003
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Hoeven Testimony On Unfair Canadian Trading Practices Presented To International Trade Commission
Testimony of the Honorable John Hoeven 
(180 kb pdf)
BISMARCK, N.D. - Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple today presented testimony to the International Trade Commission (ITC) on behalf of Governor John Hoeven concerning the commission’s investigation into Canadian wheat trading practices. In written testimony, Hoeven told the commission that North Dakota wheat farmers have incurred serious injury as a consequence of Canada’s unfair trading practices.
“It is our hope that after you have reviewed the information in these proceedings you will come to understand what governors in the region have known for so many years - U.S. hard red spring and durum wheat farmers have suffered injury at the hands of the Canadian Wheat Board,” Hoeven wrote. “And they will continue to face the threat of additional injury until the subsidies the Government of Canada provides to the Canadian Wheat Board and the unfair pricing practiced by the Board are permanently addressed.”
The ITC will decide in October whether or not to uphold the U.S. Department of Commerce’s ruling last week in its antidumping and countervailing duty investigations against Canadian wheat imports. Hoeven called the Commerce Department action a good next-step in addressing the trade monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). The determination comes in response to a petition filed by North Dakota Wheat Commission and paid for by farmers through their wheat check-off.
The ruling imposed a combined duty of 14.16 percent on imports of hard red spring wheat and 13.55 percent on imports of durum wheat. At current price levels, the duty is equivalent to about 50 cents per bushel. Hoeven had coordinated a letter signed by three other Midwestern governors to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans pressing him to be firm in the department’s determination of the duty levels for dumping and unfair government subsidization by the CWB.
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