The U.S. International Trade Commission blocked the Trump administration from imposing tariffs on Canadian newsprint, handing the publishing industry a victory in a battle it said was crucial to the health of newspapers.

The ITC, an independent government agency, ruled 5-0 that Canadian paper imports didn’t cause “material injury” to U.S. paper producers . Under U.S. trade law, tariffs don’t go into effect unless the ITC rules that the imports cause harm. The ruling frees U.S. newsprint buyers from paying deposits equal to tariffs proposed earlier by the Commerce Department—savings worth millions of dollars. The deposits will be refunded, said trade experts.

“We hope today’s reversal of these newsprint tariffs will restore stability to the market and that publishers will see a full and quick recovery,” said a statement by the News Media Alliance, a trade association of newspapers that has been lobbying on the issue. Last month, 19 members of Congress from both parties testified before the Commerce Department urging it to reverse course.

The decision comes at a particularly fraught time in U.S.-Canada relations [....]

excerpt from the article by Bob Davis & Lukas I. Alpert