US Incorrectly Defining 'Unassembled Subassemblies,' Vietnamese Chassis Importer Argues
Vehicle chassis importer -- and domestic producer -- Pitts Enterprises pushed back against the United States’ interpretation of “subassemblies” with respect to countervailing duty and antidumping duty orders on chassis and subassemblies from China (Pitts Enterprises, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00030).
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“It is this manufacture of chassis in the United States, and not component part production, for which Plaintiff Pitts, a member of the petitioning Coalition of American Chassis Manufacturers, sought relief from determined unfair trade practices of Chinese chassis, and the subassemblies of Chinese chassis,” it said.
It brought its litigation after a Commerce Department scope ruling held its Vietnamese-origin chassis, made using components sourced from China, were subject to the AD/CVD orders it had previously sought (see 2408220016).
The subassemblies covered by the orders, it said, were “modular units ready to assemble,” not individual components.
It said these individual components Commerce was trying to subject to the duties included parts such as axles and landing gear legs that could be used in multiple different vehicle types. The actual orders themselves specifically exclude individual Chinese-origin components, it claimed again.
The importer took issue with the government’s definition of “unassembled subassemblies" (see 2411270062). In opposing Pitts’ motion for judgment, the U.S. argued that components that are “collectively imported for the purposes of fitting them together” are unassembled subsidies.
The parties agree that the individual components “entered Vietnam alone in separate, independent shipments,” Pitts said. This meant that they couldn’t, by definition, be unassembled subsidies, it claimed.
The U.S. in its brief offered that the definition of “assemble” is “‘to fit together the parts of’ some object,” but this “ignores the ‘past tense’ transformation in the word’s meaning,” Pitts said.
“‘[U]nassembled,’ thus, consists of all parts to put together the subassembly at import, and not a separate, independent component part entered alone as Commerce claims,” it said.
If the term were to be read otherwise, there would be no point in including the orders’ exemption of individually entered and sold components, it said.
The importer also disagreed that it was misrepresenting primary sources. It said that the “evolution of the scope language” throughout the drafting process, not just early documents, supports Pitts’ position.