Commerce continues the antidumping order on Chinese hand trucks.

Picture the two-wheel cart you tip back and roll a stack of boxes across a warehouse floor. That is a hand truck. People also call it a dolly, a bag truck, or a hand trolley. This story is about those carts — and certain metal parts that make them — when they come from China.

First, the headline people get wrong: Chinese hand trucks are not banned. They can still be imported into the United States. What the U.S. government has had in place since 2004 is an antidumping order. That is not a ban. It is an extra import tax on a defined list of China-origin hand trucks and parts.

Here is antidumping in everyday language. “Dumping,” in U.S. trade law, means a foreign product is sold into the United States at a price the government treats as unfairly low compared with a fair value. When Commerce finds that, and the U.S. International Trade Commission finds that U.S. producers are hurt or threatened by those sales, the government can put an antidumping order on the product. The order does not stop the product at the border. It makes the importer pay an extra duty on top of the normal tariff when covered goods enter.

That is what happened with hand trucks from China. In 2004, Commerce found that hand trucks from China were being sold in the United States at less than fair value. The ITC then found that a U.S. industry was threatened with material injury by those imports. Commerce published the antidumping duty order on Dec. 2, 2004 (case A-570-891). From that point on, covered China-origin hand trucks and certain parts could still come in — but Customs collected an extra antidumping duty on them.

So what is the “cash” everyone keeps talking about? When a covered shipment arrives, U.S. Customs and Border Protection collects money at the dock toward that extra duty. The official name is a cash deposit. It is not a private wire to a Chinese factory, and it is not a fee paid to CasterHQ. It is money the importer posts with Customs so the government has funds against the antidumping duty on that entry. The Sept. 3, 2026 continuation notice says Customs will keep collecting those deposits at whatever rates are already in effect for that entry. It does not print the percentage rates in the notice, so this article does not invent them. Your broker sees the rate that applies to a specific shipment on the entry paperwork.

Why is this in the news again in 2026? These orders do not run forever without a check. About every five years the agencies run a “sunset review”: should the order expire, or stay? If they let it expire, the extra duty would stop. This was the fourth review of the hand-truck order. U.S. makers Gleason Industrial Products, Inc., and Precision Products, Inc., asked Commerce to keep it. Commerce said that if the order ended, dumping would likely come back — and in that June 5, 2026 sunset finding it said the dumping margins likely to prevail without the order would be weighted averages up to 383.60 percent. That 383.60 percent figure is Commerce’s estimate of how large dumping could be if the order went away. It is not a reprint of today’s cash-deposit rate on every entry. Separately, the ITC said U.S. producers would likely be injured again if the order ended. Because both agencies said that, Commerce published the continuation on Sept. 3, 2026 (Federal Register document 2026-18011). The continuation is applicable Aug. 18, 2026.

What does the order actually cover? The government’s written list — the “scope” — includes hand trucks made from any material, put together or in pieces, complete or incomplete, and certain parts: the vertical frame, the handling area, and the toe plate (the lip that slides under a load), alone or in combination. A complete unit is basically a hand-pushed frame with a handle up top, at least two wheels down low, and that toe plate. The notice also says you do not dodge the order just by making the frame fold, convert to a flat platform, or add extra wheels. Those common design tweaks still count as covered hand trucks. Typical tariff lines named for paperwork convenience are 8716.80.5010 and 8716.80.5090 for the trucks, and 8716.90.5060 for those parts. If a quote’s tariff line and the written description disagree, Commerce says the written description wins.

What is not covered? Small telescoping luggage-style utility carts with a tubular frame under 5/8 inch; hand trucks that use motors to move or lift; golf-bag carriers; wheels and tires sold to build hand trucks; and a multifunction cart with a permanently attached steel tub sold under names like “Aerocart.” Those are carved out of the order. They are not evidence in this week’s notice that someone just invented a new trick to beat a ban — this week’s notice is a review that kept the old order alive. The public documents we used also do not say China “went around a ban.” There was no ban. There is a duty order with a written product list, and that list is what Customs uses.

Bottom line for a buyer: you can still buy a Chinese hand truck. If it sits inside that written list, the import cost can include an extra antidumping duty, and Customs will keep collecting a deposit toward that duty when the goods enter. The 2026 news is that the government looked again and decided not to let that system expire.

What to do with this

If a China hand-truck quote lands, ask which tariff line is on it and whether the seller treats the model as inside the written scope above. Check the named exclusions before you assume it is out. Ask your customs broker what antidumping deposit applies to that entry. This is not legal advice and not a Customs ruling.