Then-President Donald Trump legally expanded the Section 232 national security tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivative" products, despite implementing the expansion beyond certain procedural deadlines laid out in the statute, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a Feb. 7 opinion. Relying on its 2021 opinion in Transpacific Steel v. U.S., in which the court said the president can adjust the tariffs beyond the time limits if it relates to the original plan of action laid out by the initial Section 232 tariff action, the Federal Circuit said the president can take action against derivatives despite the Commerce Department secretary not having individually investigated these articles. Judges Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen and Kara Stoll said the expansion to steel derivatives was within Section 232's authorization of presidential action.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 6 order denied defendant-intervenor Endura Products' motion for a stay of proceedings in an Enforce and Protect Act case brought by Columbia Aluminum pending Endura's impending appeal of a separate CIT decision over a scope ruling involving Columbia's imports. In that decision, the court upheld the exclusion of the plaintiff's door thresholds from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the stay motion failed to show it would serve the twin objectives of "fairness to the litigants and judicial economy."

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 6 dismissed importer Acquisition 362's challenge of CBP's countervailing duty assessments, ruling it did not have jurisdiction because the importer failed to file a protest. Acquisition 362, which does business as Strategic Import Supply, had argued it didn't need to file the protest because there was nothing to protest within 180 days of the tire imports at issue being liquidated. Judges Timothy Dyk, Richard Taranto and Todd Hughes ruled a protest was needed nonetheless, holding the 180-day deadline to file a protest challenging a CBP decision runs from the date of liquidation and not from the date of Commerce's antidumping and countervailing duty instructions.

The Court of International Trade in a confidential Jan. 24 opinion made public Feb. 1 upheld CBP's decision to find that importer Leco Supply evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on wire hangers from Vietnam. Leco argued that CBP illegally started the investigation; CBP's decision was not backed by substantial evidence; CBP denied Leco procedural due process; and CBP abused its discretion by refusing to accept Leco's written arguments during the remand proceeding. Judge Mark Barnett sided with the government on all four points.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 27 order granted a U.S. motion to add a questionnaire deficiencies analysis for antidumping respondent Grupo Simec to the record in a case on an AD review of steel concrete reinforcing bar from Mexico. Judge Stephen Vaden said the analysis is "properly part of the record" because the Commerce Department considered it in making the review's final decision, and "Commerce's decision cannot properly be reviewed without its inclusion." The judge added there is no "compelling evidence Commerce acted in bad faith," despite Grupo Simec's claim the agency did just that when it only sought to add the document to the record four months after the final results.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 24 order sent back the Commerce Department's final determination in the countervailing duty investigation on granular polytetrafluoroethylene from India. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that, on remand, Commerce must drop the 26.5% estimated subsidy rate for the provision of land by the State Industrial Development Corp. and reconsider the estimated subsidy rate for the provision of land from the Gujarat Industrial Development Corp.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 25 opinion dismissed a case from J.D. Irving on the Commerce Department's cash deposit instructions to CBP after the 2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber products from Canada. Judge Timothy Reif said that the court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the case under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, because jurisdiction would have been available under Section 1581(c), "but for the decision" by parties involved to request a binational panel review of the AD review under the USMCA. The true nature of the case challenges Commerce's final results in the review and not the cash deposit instructions, the judge said.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 23 order sent back the Commerce Department's decision to deny NLMK Pennsylvania's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests for certain steel slabs. Judge Claire Kelly found Commerce did not properly support its positions that the exclusion objectors offered a "suitable substitute" for the steel slab needed by NLMK and could provide NLMK with enough quantity.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 18 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's final results in an antidumping review on heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Mexico. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said comments from petitioner Nucor Tubular Products on ministerial errors present in the rate calculations for respondents Maquilacero and Prolamsa were improperly denied as untimely. The comments qualify for an exception to the rule that the notes be timely filed because the errors arose after the review's final results, the judge said.

The Court of International Trade in a confidential Dec. 22 opinion made public Jan. 13 upheld parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's sixth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce properly used adverse facts available for respondent Sino-Maple based on the company's failure to provide constructed export price information on a per-transaction basis for U.S. sales that third-country manufacturers made to its U.S. affiliate. The judge, however, sent back the AFA rate itself, finding the agency can't set the AFA rate for one respondent at the highest transaction-specific margin for the other respondent. Eaton also upheld Commerce's decisions to reject separate rate applications from Scholar Home and Baishan Huafeng.