Offering its thoughts as an amicus curiae to the Supreme Court’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs case, the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog said that if IEEPA does grant the executive the powers President Donald Trump claims, the law itself is unconstitutional under the nondelegation doctrine (Donald J. Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, U.S. 25-250) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, U.S. 24-1287).

The Commerce Department improperly found that the plain language of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on chassis and subassemblies thereof from China cover Vietnamese chassis with Chinese-origin components, the Court of International Trade held on Oct. 8. Judge Claire Kelly said the orders "contain multiple ambiguities," including "when components are included within the scope of the Orders," when third-country operations exclude the individual components from the orders, and the meaning of "subassemblies ... whether ... assembled or unassembled."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 8 held that the Commerce Department's "cross-ownership regulation" turns on whether the purpose of the subsidy provided to a cross-owned input provider "is to benefit the production of both the input and downstream products." In clarifying how the regulation is to be applied, Judges Jimmie Reyna, William Bryson and Kara Stoll held that the Court of International Trade was right to reject Commerce's application of this regulation to countervailing duty respondent Gujarat Fluorochemicals in the countervailing duty investigation on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) resin from India.

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Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pressed counsel for importer Blue Sky the Color of Imagination and the government during oral argument on Oct. 7 in the importer's customs classification suit on its notebooks with calendars. During the argument, Judges Alan Lourie, Raymond Chen and William Bryson grappled with whether the court is bound by its 2010 ruling in Mead v. U.S. and whether the goods are properly classified as calendars or diaries (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).

A World Trade Organization dispute panel on Oct. 2 found that the EU violated its WTO commitments in its antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings on stainless steel cold-rolled flat products from Indonesia. Specifically, the dispute panel rejected the European Commission's attempt to countervail Chinese transnational subsidies in the Indonesian steel sector.

The Commerce Department erred in using likely selling prices as facts otherwise available for antidumping duty respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's cost of production, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Oct. 6. Judges Alan Lourie, Timothy Dyk and Jimmie Reyna held that where there's a gap to fill on the record, "there must be a reasonable relationship between the selected facts otherwise available and the gap to be filled."

The Court of International Trade's ruling that a product is "imported" for duty drawback purposes when it's admitted into a foreign-trade zone and not when entered for domestic consumption would lead to a partial repeal of the FTZ Act, importer King Maker Marketing argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. King Maker said the trade court's decision would lead to "absurd and anomalous results," since it would require finding the clock for drawback claims to start before the right to make the claim accrues (King Maker Marketing v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1819).

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 1 sent back the Commerce Department's decision to deny antidumping duty respondent Ditar's request for a level-of-trade analysis in the AD investigation on shopping bags from Colombia.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 1 sent back the Commerce Department's finding that antidumping duty respondent Ditar correctly reported an individual transaction, dubbed "Transaction X," as a home market sale in the AD investigation on shopping bags from Colombia. Judge M. Miller Baker said on remand the agency must address whether Ditar had "actual" knowledge of whether Transaction X was destined for export "without importing evidence relevant only to" whether Ditar had "constructive" knowledge that the sale was for export.