Antidumping (“AD”) and countervailing duty (“CVD”) petitions filed on October 28, 2026 cover shopping carts and cart parts from China. The petitions allege dumping margins of 165 percent to 343 percent, along with a range of Chinese subsidies, and Commerce must decide whether to initiate investigations by November 17, 2026.

What Is Covered

The proposed scope covers shopping carts of any size, finished or unfinished, assembled or unassembled, with baskets made primarily of metal, plastic, or a combination. Covered carts have a frame or base of welded steel wire or steel tube and one or more baskets, with or without a lower tray or grill. Covered carts may also be fitted with plastic handle units, child seats, and polyurethane or rubber wheels. The petitions identify HTSUS subheading 8716.80.5090, though the written scope description controls.

The exclusions turn on design tests rather than on how a product is marketed. Carts for individuals with disabilities are excluded only if fitted with a built-in restraint system, specialized seating, or a coupling mechanism that joins a wheelchair and cart into a single fixed unit. Motorized carts, fully collapsible carts, and carts with a permanently or semi-permanently affixed infant carrier in place of a child seat are also outside the scope, as are yokes, casters, and wheels when imported alone. Material handling carts are excluded only if they meet at least three of five criteria: a rated capacity of 1,000 pounds or more, a heavy-gauge steel tube or welded plate chassis, a flat open deck, industrial casters with wheels of six inches or more, and no consumer features such as child seats, bag hooks, or nesting geometry. Warehouse picking carts and logistics trolleys face a similar three-of-four test built on non-nesting rigid frames, upright push-bar handles, multi-tiered open shelving, and a two fixed plus two swivel caster configuration.

The scope separately covers cart parts — frames, baskets, basket walls, upright tubing, trays, back rests, child seats, gates, and handles — whether imported with a cart or on their own, and the petitions state that the parts of a single cart need not enter at the same time or on the same entry summary. The scope also reaches carts assembled in a third country from Chinese parts, and defines the covered processing to include welding, plating, painting, machining, and assembly.

Key Dates

Commerce must decide whether to initiate within 20 days of filing, and the Commission must make its preliminary injury determination within 45 days. Cash deposits do not begin until Commerce issues its preliminary determinations.

The postponed column assumes Commerce takes the full statutory extensions, so those dates are approximate. If the CVD case is aligned with the AD case, the two orders would issue together.

What Happens Next

The Commission’s preliminary injury phase runs first and ends on December 14. It will collect data by questionnaire from U.S. producers, importers, and purchasers. A negative determination would end both investigations.

Scope language can still change before initiation. Commerce has recently used that period to press petitioners to narrow proposed scopes, as it did in the linear hydraulic cylinders investigations, and it sets the deadline for scope comments in its initiation notice. Commerce will then select mandatory respondents from among Chinese exporters based on quantity and value responses. Exporters that do not participate, or that cannot show independence from government control, fall into the China-wide entity and take its rate, which is typically the highest in the proceeding.

How This May Affect Your Company

The companies most directly affected are U.S. importers and retailers sourcing carts from China, but the scope as drafted also captures importers of cart components, companies assembling carts in a third country from Chinese parts, and suppliers of replacement parts. No duties are owed yet, and the petitions do not allege critical circumstances, so the earliest exposure is cash deposits beginning with Commerce’s preliminary determinations.

Shopping carts from China already carry other duties. HTSUS subheading 8716.80.50 was added to the Section 232 derivative steel list, and now carries a 25 percent tariff on the full entered value. Certain shopping carts are also subject to Section 301 duties.

Companies with exposure should map which components in their carts originate in China, review any third-country assembly arrangements against the scope language, and ask their Chinese suppliers whether they intend to participate. Those duties stack, so a cost model built on an AD/CVD rate alone will understate the exposure.