American Manufacturers and Farmers Form Coalition to Oppose Sweeping Import Duties on Essential Ingredients

Coalition for Affordable Ingredients (CAI) launches to oppose one company's petition for antidumping and countervailing duties of up to 94% on vegetable-based fatty acids, critical inputs with no domestic substitute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of American manufacturers, farmers, and downstream chemical intermediate producers and distributors today launched the Coalition for Affordable Ingredients (CAI), opposing trade petitions that, if granted, would impose steep antidumping and countervailing (AD/CVD) duties on imported vegetable-based fatty acids from Indonesia and Malaysia. 

CAI's members make the everyday products American families rely on — soaps, detergents, cosmetics, foods, and animal nutrition — and range from small, family-owned businesses to large multinationals. The proposed duties would raise costs across billions of dollars' worth of these goods. 

Dairy farmers would be among the hardest hit: palmitic acid derived from these fatty acids is a near-universal ingredient in the feed supplements that support milk production, leaving producers with few practical alternatives. Some warn that duties at even half the alleged rates would put them out of business. 

"One small company's petition could quietly raise costs on billions of dollars of everyday products -- soap, food, dairy nutrition — and almost no one knows it's happening," said John Gurley, Partner at ArentFox Schiff LLP and counsel to the coalition. " Consumer demand for plant-based, certified products continues to grow and Americans expect those products to remain affordable. This coalition is advocating for businesses and families who depend on these affordable ingredients.  The facts and the law are on our side, and we believe the International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce will see this petition for what it is."

The members share one core concern: the targeted fatty acids have no viable domestic substitute. The imports carry vegan, kosher, halal, and cruelty-free certifications that customers demand; domestic tallow-based producers cannot replicate these certifications. While the coalition is expected to grow, current members report that roughly $500 million of their products depend on these plant-based inputs. This figure dramatically understates the full impact. If the duties take effect, the viability of some member companies would be directly threatened. 

If imposed, the duties will pass down the supply chain to American manufacturers, farmers, workers, and consumers as higher input costs, lost export sales, and expensive reformulations. The petition's real targets are not importers but U.S. purchasers of vegetable-based fatty acids, and the American families who buy the products made from them.

More on the Petition

The petitions were filed by a single domestic producer, Vantage Specialty Chemicals, which has proposed duties exceeding 72.03 percent on imports from Indonesia and 94.41 percent on imports from Malaysia. If imposed, the duties would remain in place for at least five years, raising costs across the personal care, household cleaning, food, and dairy nutrition industries that depend on these ingredients. Of the four other U.S. producers, none publicly supported this petition.

The coalition contends Vantage's challenges are of its own making. Before filing, the company's own officials publicly attributed its difficulties to its continued reliance on beef tallow feedstock — increasingly costly as federal biofuel subsidies bid up demand — and to shifting customer preferences, not foreign competition.

What Comes Next

The U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to issue its preliminary determination in the countervailing duty investigation in mid-July 2026 and in the antidumping investigation in mid-September.

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The Coalition for Affordable Ingredients (CAI) is an alliance of American manufacturers, farmers, and downstream producers that depend on imported vegetable-based fatty acids to make everyday consumer products. CAI advocates for affordable, reliable access to the certified ingredients American industry requires, and opposes the antidumping and countervailing duty petitions filed against fatty acid imports from Indonesia and Malaysia. www.affordableingredients.org