The Supreme Court of the U.S. declined to take up a key case over the president's power under the Section 232 national security tariff statute. Rejecting a petition from importer Transpacific Steel and several other companies, SCOTUS in effect upheld a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that said that the president can increase tariffs under Section 232 beyond procedural time limits.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated March 23 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Court of International Trade partially remanded the Commerce Department's final determination in the countervailing duty investigation on utility-scale wind towers from Vietnam, in a March 24 confidential opinion. The U.S. trade group Wind Tower Trade Coalition brought the case to argue in favor of an adverse facts available rate for an exporter. According to the coalition's complaint, the plaintiff challenged Commerce's decision to rely on respondent CS Wind's South Korean affiliate's sales revenue for wind towers as the denominator in the subsidy calculations rather than CS Wind's own sales revenue. The coalition also said that Commerce erred in relying on CS Wind's alleged contradictory reporting on the country of origin and supplies for its steel plate inputs when calculating a subsidy rate for the Import Duty Exemptions on Imports of Raw Materials for Exporting Goods program (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. U.S., CIT #20-03692).
DOJ is again arguing that it can file counterclaims in Court of International Trade classification cases -- even after more than four years into a case. Days after defending its counterclaim in another denied protest case involving importer Cyber Power (see 2203180042), DOJ is now arguing that delays by another importer in a separate case, Second Nature, allow it to bring a counterclaim despite the time elapsed (Second Nature Designs Ltd. v. United States, CIT #17-00271).
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania dismissed a case brought by steel company NLMK Pennsylvania and Indiana alleging that U.S. Steel lied to the Commerce Department to get NLMK's requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs denied. Judge William Stickman said it's unclear whether NLMK submitted a viable claim of unfair competition under Pennsylvania state law, but even if it did, federal law preempts the claim (NLMK Pennsylvania v. U.S. Steel Corporation, W.D. Pa. #21-00273).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is wading into “unchartered waters” if it tries extending the lists 1 and 2 Section 301 tariffs on China past their four-year expiration deadlines under the 1974 Trade Act (see 2203140004), David Olave, a Sandler Travis associate and trade policy adviser, said in an email. List 1 is due to expire July 6, List 2 only seven weeks later on Aug. 23.
The Court of International Trade rejected exporter Ancientree Cabinet's arguments that the Commerce Department violated the law with its financial ratio calculations in an antidumping duty investigation. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled March 21 that Commerce adequately explained its ratio calculation methodology on remand and that, contrary to Ancientree's arguments, the agency didn't violate any normal or established practice.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps should not be allowed to amend its complaint since the case cannot be amended to claim jurisdiction over a denied protest after the 180-day window to file a challenge has lapsed, the Justice Department said in a March 18 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The U.S. also contested Dr. Bronner's motion since it sought to only amend the complaint and not the summons (All One God Faith v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-00164).