Commerce preliminarily finds Morocco phosphate CVD order should survive first sunset review

Mechanism

Five-year "sunset" reviews under 19 U.S.C. §1675(c) require Commerce and the US International Trade Commission to periodically re-examine whether an existing AD/CVD order should be revoked. This is the first full sunset review of the 2021 CVD order on Moroccan phosphate fertilizers — a full (rather than expedited) review because interested parties on both sides (Mosaic/Simplot as petitioners; Moroccan/US importer interests) submitted substantive responses. Commerce's preliminary finding is that revocation would likely let OCP Group's countervailable subsidies recur at 20.04% ad valorem, a rate assembled from the original 2021 investigation rate (19.97%) minus a since-terminated export-tax incentive program, plus new subsidy programs identified in later administrative reviews. The ITC separately determines whether revocation would cause material injury to the US industry; only if both agencies find in favor of continuation does the order survive intact. Final results are still pending.

This runs on a parallel but distinct track from the 29 June 2026 emergency declaration (Section 318(a) of the Tariff Act) that suspended collection of AD/CVD duties on Moroccan phosphate fertilizer imports for up to eight months on fertilizer-availability grounds — that suspension is temporary and does not affect whether the underlying order is revoked or continued at the end of this sunset review.

Downstream implications

• If Commerce's and the ITC's final results affirm continuation, the CVD

order remains in force at least through the next five-year cycle, re-anchoring the assumed long-run duty rate on Moroccan phosphate fertilizer even after the current emergency suspension expires.

• A subsidy rate of 20.04% (versus the 2.11%–16.81% range actually

collected in recent years) signals Commerce's underlying view of Moroccan state support to OCP Group has not diminished, relevant to any future administrative review recalculating the applied rate.

• Morocco (OCP Group) holds roughly 70% of global phosphate-rock reserves;

the long-run duty structure on its US fertilizer exports is a structural input to US farm input costs regardless of the near-term emergency suspension.

Open questions

• Timing and outcome of Commerce's final sunset determination and the

ITC's parallel injury determination.

• Whether the 29 June 2026 emergency suspension is extended, allowed to

lapse at its eight-month cap, or superseded before this sunset review concludes.