Landed cost on a container of epoxy resin doesn’t track unit price the way it used to, and if you’ve sourced from more than one country in the past two years, you’ve probably already run into that. A multi-year U.S. trade case has quietly reshuffled the epoxy resin import tariff picture for South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, and India, and each origin now sits in a different regulatory spot. Assuming they’re interchangeable is a good way to get a bill at customs clearance that doesn’t match the quote you signed off on.
Below is the timeline of exactly what happened and when, followed by what the current epoxy resin import tariff exposure actually looks like country by country — useful if you’re vetting an epoxy resin manufacturer for table top, deep pour, or UV resin production and need something more concrete than “China is risky” or “Korea is safe.”
How We Got Here: A Clear Timeline
A formal petition kicked this off, and from there it followed the standard two-track process U.S. trade law uses: Commerce looks at pricing and subsidies, and separately, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) decides whether the domestic industry was actually hurt. Duties don’t stick unless both agencies land on yes.
| Date | Milestone |
| Apr 2, 2024 | U.S. Epoxy Resin Producers Ad Hoc Coalition (Olin Corp. and Westlake Corp.) files AD/CVD petitions against epoxy resin imports from China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. |
| Sep 13, 2024 | Commerce issues preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) determinations. |
| Nov 2024 | Commerce’s preliminary antidumping finding sets a China-wide dumping margin of 354.99% (344.45% after subsidy offset) — a cash-deposit rate, not a final duty. |
| Feb 2025 | Commerce completes post-preliminary analysis; comment period closes with no objections filed. |
| Apr 3, 2025 | Commerce issues its final affirmative CVD determination on epoxy resins from China. |
| Apr 30, 2025 | USITC issues final injury determinations: imports from South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand are found to injure the U.S. industry (AD/CVD orders proceed). Investigations covering China and India are terminated because import volumes are found to be negligible. |
| Jun 9, 2025 | USITC publishes its full public report (Publication 5619) detailing the injury findings. |
| Jul 24, 2026 | A separate, broader Section 301 action tied to forced-labor enforcement adds 10%–12.5% tariffs on goods from a list of 60 economies — layered on top of, not a replacement for, existing China-specific tariffs. |
Where Each Country Stands Today
A lot of buyers get the outcome backwards on first read. China and India walked away from this particular case without new AD/CVD orders attached to their epoxy resin exports, while South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand didn’t. Say “trade case targeting Chinese imports” to most people and they picture the opposite result.
| Origin | AD/CVD Status (this case) | Practical Note |
| China | Investigation terminated — USITC found import volume negligible | Still subject to pre-existing Section 301 tariffs and a separate CVD order from an earlier proceeding; not “duty-free.” |
| India | Investigation terminated — same negligible-volume finding | Lowest direct exposure among the five origins in this case. |
| South Korea | AD/CVD orders in force — injury confirmed | Dumping margins up to roughly 24.65% depending on producer; South Korea and Taiwan together account for over 60% of total U.S. epoxy resin imports. |
| Taiwan | AD/CVD orders in force — injury confirmed | Company-specific rates vary; landed cost now includes AD/CVD duties on top of standard tariffs. |
| Thailand | AD/CVD orders in force — injury confirmed | Smaller volume base than Korea/Taiwan but now carries the same duty exposure. |
The China and India outcome deserves a closer look, because the easy reading of it is wrong. USITC didn’t examine the underlying pricing or subsidy allegations and clear these two countries on the merits. It found that the actual volume of epoxy resin entering the U.S. from China and India during the investigation period was too small to have caused injury — so there was nothing left to rule on, and the case against them simply ended there. Import volume, not innocence, is what closed it. China-origin material still carries pre-existing Section 301 tariffs, plus a separate CVD determination from an earlier proceeding that has nothing to do with this case. Anyone reading “investigation terminated” as “epoxy resin import tariff-free” is working off half the picture.
A Second Layer: Section 301 and Forced-Labor Enforcement
A broader Section 301 action, unrelated to the epoxy-specific case above and tied instead to forced-labor enforcement, took effect July 24, 2026. It adds 10% to 12.5% on goods from a list of 60 economies, and it stacks on top of everything else rather than replacing any of it. Depending on origin and how the product is classified, a single shipment could face a standard duty, an AD/CVD order if it’s coming from South Korea, Taiwan, or Thailand, and now this newer 301 surcharge, all at once. One tariff line rarely tells the whole story anymore when you’re pricing out an epoxy resin import tariff scenario — landed cost gets built from several layers stacked together, and each layer moves on its own calendar.
What This Means for Buyers Choosing a Supplier
None of this crowns one country the automatic safe pick. What it does change is which questions belong in supplier diligence. Before locking in a source for table top epoxy, deep pour epoxy, or UV resin, these are worth asking directly:
- Which HTS classification covers this product, and does the invoice reflect that code accurately? Standard epoxy resin typically falls under HTS 3907.30.00, but formulated or blended products can land in a different bucket — and that changes the duty math.
- Is this exact product, from this exact producer, named in an active AD/CVD order — or excluded from it? Rates vary by company even within a single country of origin, sometimes by a wide margin.
- Does the quoted price already fold in duties, or is landed cost something the buyer has to calculate separately? A supplier quoting bare FOB pricing without flagging applicable tariffs is leaving that gap for someone else to discover later.
- Is the supplier a direct manufacturer, or a trading company reselling output from a third-party producer? The more intermediaries sit between buyer and factory, the murkier tariff and country-of-origin paperwork tends to get.
- Has the supplier changed sourcing or production locations in response to these rulings, and can they back up current compliance status with documentation rather than a verbal assurance?
For buyers already qualifying Chinese suppliers, the practical read on the 2025 USITC outcome is that direct-from-manufacturer sourcing in China remains workable — and, for standard epoxy resin, comparatively lighter on new duty exposure than South Korea, Taiwan, or Thailand right now. That only holds up, though, if the existing Section 301 and CVD obligations get built into the total cost model from day one instead of surfacing as a surprise on the first invoice.
The Bottom Line
Cases like this rarely hand a clean win to one country. What actually shifted between 2025 and 2026 is that South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand now carry AD/CVD duty exposure that China and India, for now, don’t — while China keeps carrying its own separate tariff obligations that predate this case by years. Buyers who ask pointed, document-backed questions about HTS classification, order coverage, and total landed cost end up with better sourcing decisions than buyers who just default to a gut feeling about which countries are “safe” this quarter — and treating the current epoxy resin import tariff landscape as fixed rather than checking it per shipment is how buyers get caught off guard.
Jinhua Resin manufactures directly — we’re not reselling someone else’s output as a trading company — and we walk export buyers through HTS classification, current duty status, and paperwork before a purchase order goes out, not after the shipment is already at the port.