Cold-Rolled Steel Importer Says CBP Refused to Correct Incorrect Country of Origin on 173 Entries
Importer Outokumpu Stainless Steel brought a Feb. 20 complaint to the Court of International Trade alleging CBP had wrongly failed to correct the country of origin designated on 173 of its entries, resulting in the importer being assessed Section 232 tariffs (Outokumpu Stainless USA v. United States, CIT # 25-00047).
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The importer said its entries of cold-rolled, flat-rolled stainless steel had been originally “melted and poured in Europe” and was later “cold-rolled and finished” in its Mexican facility. It said it had “inadvertently declared the country of melt and pour” as the entries’ country of origin instead of Mexico.
USMCA rules say that the location a product undergoes cold-rolling is that product’s country of origin, it said. But CBP denied its protests, it said, stating that Outokumpu had provided insufficient information. The importer said it had given the agency its mill certificates, as well as the relevant USMCA rule, upon request, and that the agency hadn’t sought any additional information at all regarding most of its protests.