CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on whether Suzhou Quality Import and Export had evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China and imposed interim measures. The investigation followed a January allegation by the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee, which said Suzhou Quality had entered Chinese-origin aluminum extrusions subject to the AD/CVD into the U.S. without declaring them subject to those orders or paying the required cash deposits.
Ben Perkins
Ben Perkins, Assistant Editor, is a reporter with International Trade Today and its sister publications, Trade Law Daily and Export Compliance Daily, where he covers sanctions, court rulings, and other international trade issues. He previously worked as a trade analyst for a Washington D.C. advisory firm. Ben holds a B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. in International Relations from American University. Ben joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2022.
Covers for smartphones, tablets, and media players made of plastic and silicone are "other articles of plastic" and not "trunks, suitcases ... and similar containers...," importer Incipio Technologies said in a June 29 complaint. CBP initially classified the covers under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 4202.92.90 or 4202.99.90, dutiable at 17.6% or 20%. Incipio's prefered subheading of 3926.90.99 carries a duty rate of 5.3%. Incipio asked the court to reliquidate the cases and to order CBP to refund excess duties with interest (Incipio Technologies v. U.S., CIT # 19-00097).
The Enforce and Protect Act evasion investigation process is being gamed by both allegers and CBP to tilt it in favor of finding evasion by importers to the point that the agency finds evasion 90% of the time, customs lawyers Jennifer Diaz and David Craven said during a June 29 webinar hosted by National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Educational Institute.
CBP reversed an evasion determination against Scioto Valley Woodworking, after initially having found that Scioto had imported Chinese wooden cabinets and vanities by transshipment through Malaysia using adverse facts available. Upon review, CBP found the use of AFA was unwarranted and said evidence showed the manufacturer, Alno, could and did produce wooden cabinets and vanities in Malaysia.
The Court of International Trade should reject a challenge from U.S. steel company Cleveland-Cliffs of the International Trade Commission’s decision not to cumulate imports in sunset reviews, two Brazilian steel exporters said in a June 27 brief at CIT. The steel producers -- Companhia Siderurgica Nacional and Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais -- said Cleveland Cliffs illegally asked CIT to "seize the Commission’s statutory discretion to decumulate in sunset reviews, establish new law, reweigh the evidence, and make findings that this Court has never made before” (Cleveland-Cliffs v. U.S., CIT # 22-00257).
Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) asked the Court of International Trade to stay a court order for CBP to reliquidate entries of its imported mixtures while the importer pursues an appeal of the relevant CIT decision, issued in May (see 2305260048). CIT had found the importer'ws frozen fruit mixtures classifiable under the basket tariff subheading 0811.90.80 pf the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. as "other" frozen fruits, dutiable at 14.5%, rather than under a duty-free classification under subheading 2106.90.98 as “[f]ood preparations not otherwise specified or included," as advocated by Nature's Touch.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department should have applied adverse facts to a Korean oil country tubular goods respondent for "failing" to provide information that the department did not request and the government's claim that it so is "demonstrably false," SeAH Steel said in a June 27 response brief at the Court of International Trade (SeAH Steel v. U.S., CIT # 22-00338).
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to apply adverse facts available to antidumping duty respondent Meihua along with its decisions not to rescind its review of Deosen Biochemical and not to recalculate a separate rate in spite of a court order to reconsider all three, in remand results filed with the Court of International Trade on June 27 (Meihua Group International (Hong Kong) v. U.S., CIT # 22-00069).
CBP's attempts to collect a 14-year-old bond for antidumping duties on Chinese garlic should be thrown out because the agency's collection policy change "fundamentally altered" the responsibilities of all parties to the bond, said surety Aegis Security Insurance in its June 26 brief at the Court of International Trade (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance, CIT # 20-03628).