Commerce Properly Used Maersk Data to Value Ocean Freight, Petitioner Tells CIT
The Commerce Department properly relied on Maersk data as the surrogate value for ocean freight and found that certain fabricated steel components used by respondent Zhejiang Dingli Machinery shouldn't be valued using data under Harmonized System subheadings covering "primary or raw steel products," petitioner Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment argued. Submitting remand comments to the Court of International Trade on Aug. 11, the coalition urged the court to accept the agency's remand results in the antidumping duty investigation on mobile access equipment from China (Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00152).
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In its comments, the coalition responded to arguments from Dingli challenging these two points.
Regarding the valuation of ocean freight, the petitioner noted that the court told Commerce to "address its valuation of ocean freight." The coalition said that, consistent with the CIT ruling, "the Maersk ocean freight data on the record were properly re-designated as public information," which led Commerce to "correctly find that the public Maersk data are superior to the limited Descartes, Drewry, and Freightos data previously relied upon."
The coalition argued that Dingli's arguments to the contrary fall flat on various fronts. For instance, the respondent "fails to acknowledge that Commerce comprehensively evaluated each of the multiple ocean freight data sources on the record before ultimately choosing to rely on the Maersk data," the brief said. Dingli also "erroneously argues that the Maersk data are not reliable because they are based on price quotes."
The respondent also "mistakenly argues that Commerce has improperly relied on the route-specificity of the Maersk data in selecting its ocean freight surrogate value data," and Dingli "is wrong to claim that Commerce mistakenly relies on the reporting of incidental ocean freight charges in choosing ocean freight surrogate value data," the brief said.
Regarding the revaluation of Dingli's fabricated steel components to no longer value the inputs under HS subheadings specific to primary or raw steel products, the coalition said Commerce correctly found that the "record is clear that Dingli purchased fabricated steel components instead of raw steel products."
Dingli's claims to the contrary "are based on the incorrect assumption that the inputs purchased by Dingli were raw steel and not fabricated steel components," the coalition claimed. In addition, Dingli "unduly focuses on differences in average unit value ('AUV') between the Harmonized Tariff Schedule ('HTS') categories relied on by Commerce, which are not determinative in this context," the petitioner argued.