US Commerce preliminary countervailing duty on unwrought palladium from Russia

Mechanism

This is a US trade-remedy (countervailing duty) action, not a sanction: Commerce's CVD investigation targets Russian government subsidies to palladium producers/ exporters rather than the Russia-sanctions IEEPA/OFAC architecture. Russia is the world's largest palladium producer (Nornickel), and palladium is a critical autocatalyst and electronics input with limited non-Russian, non-South-African supply. The 109.10% preliminary rate — set on facts available with adverse inferences after the Russian respondents evidently did not cooperate with the investigation — functions as a near-prohibitive tariff on Russian-origin unwrought palladium imports into the US, reinforcing existing informal supply-chain avoidance of Russian PGMs post-2022 without relying on the sanctions toolkit. Severity is set at 4 (not 5) because the US is a comparatively small direct importer of Russian palladium relative to European/Asian buyers, so the trade-flow impact is more symbolic/precedent-setting than physically binding on global PGM markets.

Downstream implications

• Reinforces the post-2022 pattern of Western buyers routing around Russian PGM

supply even absent formal sanctions, tightening the ex-Russia palladium market further.

• Sets a rate benchmark (109.10%) that the companion antidumping investigation

(state-act 94088, filed separately) will likely echo or compound.

• Final CVD determination (2026-05-20) confirms the preliminary finding; watch

for the concurrent antidumping final determination and any ITC injury determination that could still terminate the order.

Open questions

• ~~Did the ITC's final injury determination sustain the order, or was it

terminated on a negative injury finding?~~ Resolved 2026-05-29: negative injury finding, no CVD order issued (see amendments).

• Did any US industry petitioners request a review or appeal of the negative

injury determination?