CIT Upholds ITC's Preliminary Negative Injury Finding on Dominican Aluminum Extrusions
The Court of International Trade on April 18 upheld the International Trade Commission's preliminary negative injury determination on aluminum extrusions from the Dominican Republic. Judge Lisa Wang rejected all three claims from petitioners U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition and United Steelworkers, which challenged the ITC's conclusions that the Dominican imports were negligible, there was "no likelihood of contrary evidence to arise in the final phase which would warrant a non-negligibility determination" and the Dominican imports didn't have the "potential to exceed the negligibility threshold in the imminent future."
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Wang held that the petitioners' arguments "misapprehend the court's role in reviewing" the ITC's analysis. The court's role "begins and ends with whether the Commission has proffered a rational connection between the evidence before it and its preliminary determination," the judge said. Since the ITC has offered this basis, the determination was sustained.
The petitioners first challenged the commission's negligiblity finding on the grounds that it was reached only through "extensive adjustment." The petitioners said the ITC adjusted official import statistics, which facially showed non-negligibility. The commission "inflated total imports" by adding a substantial volume of in-scope merchandise that came from one importer's questionnaire response, the petitioners said. This response didn't isolate subject merchandise, since it reported the total weight of downstream products with aluminum extrusions as component parts where these products also included parts other than in-scope extrusions, the petitioners said.
Wang held that the ITC gave a "rational basis in fact for the determination" that the official import figures weren't the "most accurate data and required adjustments." The commission said the official import statistics were made to account for "imports under the non-primary [Harmonized Tariff Schedule] HTS numbers, out-of-scope merchandise reported in the primary HTS numbers that importers indicated was not in-scope, [and] merchandise from importers who certified in their questionnaire response that they had not imported in-scope merchandise."
The scope of the investigations included primary and non-primary HTS codes. Primary HTS codes included out-of-scope merchandise, while non-primary HTS codes included in-scope merchandise. Also, Chinese imports were subject to existing antidumpng duty and countervailing duty orders and were also excluded, the commission explained. Thus, the ITC said the HTS codes from the official statistics didn't directly match with the scope of the investigation.
The court said this finding "has a rational basis in fact" and is supported by the Statement of Administrative Action accompanying the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which says the ITC may have to make "reasonable estimates on the basis of available statistics when calculating import volumes."
The petitioners next argued that the ITC's adjustments to the official import statistics indicated an "obvious potential for contrary evidence" showing non-negligibility to arise in the investigation's final phase, especially when the adjustments could easily change with better information. While the commission acknowledged that questionnaire response coverage was "low," the ITC used its "expertise and discretion to adjust official import statistics using questionnaire data," the court said.
Wang held that the petitioners are "correct that the reasonable indication standard weighs against negative preliminary determinations." However, she ultimately said the court "cannot entertain mere speculation as the 'statute calls for a reasonable indication of injury, not a reasonable indication of need for further inquiry.'" The petitioners didn't explain "how or why importers would be able to provide more specific data reflecting in-scope merchandise in a final phase."
Lastly, the petitioners said the ITC erred in finding that imports from the Dominican Republic weren't imminently likely to become non-negligible, since the imports showed the potential to continue to grow. The petitioners said the ITC should have considered "longer trends and broader data," stripping its analysis of a rational basis in fact given its limited coverage and "inflated data" in light of the "meteoric rise" in imports from the Dominican Republic.
Wang again rejected this claim, finding that the ITC didn't act arbitrarily or capriciously in considering "several factors in its analysis." For instance, the commission considered "the rate of increase of import volume from the Dominican Republic during the POI, the relative size of the industry, its limited production capacity, decreasing use of arranged imports, and the production capacity constraints of the largest producer from the Dominican Republic, Kingtom."
While the petitioners said imports from the Dominican Republic were "imminently likely to become non-negligible," since the country's monthly import share exceeded negligibility in eight of 12 months of the review period, the court faulted the parties for using the unadjusted statistics, which the ITC reasonably said were faulty.
(U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition v. United States, Slip Op. 25-44, CIT # 23-00270, dated 04/18/25; Judge: Lisa Wang; Attorneys: Enbar Toledano of Wiley Rein for plaintiffs U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition and United Steelworkers; Anthony Famiglietti for defendant U.S. government; Jordan Fleischer of Morris Manning for Kingtom Aluminio)