Importer Says Its Printed Circuit Assemblies Illegally Hit With Section 301 Duties
CBP illegally denied importer Atlas Power's protest claiming its NVIDIA CMP 170HX printed circuit assemblies were exempt from Section 301 duties, Atlas said in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer said its assemblies, classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8473.30.1180, qualify for a Section 301 exclusion for unfinished logic boards (Atlas Power v. U.S., CIT # 23-00084).
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The list of excluded products under Chapter 99 includes printed circuit assemblies "for rendering images onto computer screens," "to enhance the graphics performance of automatic data processing (ADP) machines," or that constitute "unfinished logic boards."
The importer said dictionaries define a logic board as an assembly of "decision-making circuits on a printed-circuit mounting board," adding its CMP 170HX product falls within that definition since it's a printed circuit assembly with a large number of arithmetic logic units. The CMP 170HX is a logic board "because it is a printed circuit assembly containing a large number of ALUs, each of which behaves as a decision making circuit," the complaint said.
ADPs are considered unfinished if they require further processing after being imported. Atlas' product was unfinished, making it illegal to apply Section 301 duties to the product, the complaint said. In the alternative, Atlas said its assemblies are unfinished accelerator modules since they have the "same essential character as accelerator modules."