Subsidies on agricultural products raise complex questions beyond the scope of this chapter. Foreign companies should note a few general points. First, the Commerce Department has conducted countervailing duty investigations of agricultural products in the past. In principle, the law applies to agricultural products just as it does to manufactured products.

Second, if a subsidy has been listed in Annex I of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, the subsidy is non-actionable. Since this area involves the interplay of the complex provisions in the Agreement on Agriculture and the provisions of the SCM Agreement, a foreign company facing a countervailing duty investigation involving agricultural products will have a more complex task at hand.

Third, another complexity that arises for agricultural products involves the relationship between the growers and processors. The United States law specifically allows domestic industries to file countervailing duty cases against subsidies to either the raw agricultural product or the downstream processed product. These special rules create yet another level of complexity.

Fourth, agricultural products are usually seasonal, and both the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission have adapted their rules from time to time to account for the special circumstances raised by seasonal products.

Source: Business Guide to Trade Remedies in the United States: Anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguards legislation practices and procedures