President Donald Trump may look to ramp up his use of sections 232 and 301 should the Supreme Court rule that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act can't be used for levying tariffs, various lawyers told us. However, the expanded use of these statutes, both as they are being used now and how they may be used to supplant the existing reciprocal and fentanyl trafficking tariffs, may encounter legal difficulties.
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 granted default judgment against importer Rago Tires for negligence in importing tires by not declaring the goods as subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese truck and bus tires. Judge Joseph Laroski ordered Rago to pay a $14,108.87 penalty.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 held that the deadline for filing a complaint isn't a jurisdictional issue. As a result, Judge Richard Eaton said he had the power to vacate the dismissal of a case from various exporters in an antidumping duty case, which was issued due to the exporters' failure to timely file a complaint.
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Petitioner Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's exclusion of seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China (see 2510090016). The trade court said the exclusion of the bricks comports with a 2014 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which led to the standard that the addition of any amount of alumina to a magnesia carbon brick excludes it from the orders. The case was filed by Fedmet to contest the scope ruling, which came after a referral in an AD/CVD evasion case, on 11 of Fedmet's brick types. After CIT initially remanded the case to address the CAFC ruling, Commerce said seven of Fedmet's brick types are excluded from the order, since they have a non-zero alumina content (Fedmet Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00117).
Eight more cases have been filed at the Court of International Trade contesting the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act following oral argument at the Supreme Court in the lead cases on the issue, during which many of the justices expressed skepticism over the validity of such tariffs.
The Commerce Department erred in picking Germany as the comparison market for determining antidumping duty respondent Prochamp's normal value in the AD investigation on mushrooms from the Netherlands, petitioner Giorgio Foods told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its opening brief. Giorgio contested the four bases on which Commerce made its decision to use Germany as the comparison market, arguing that each isn't backed by substantial evidence (Giorgio Foods v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-2090).
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 granted the government's motion for default judgment in a customs penalty suit against importer Rago Tires, imposing a $14,108.87 civil penalty against the company. Judge Joseph Laroski found that Rago violated customs laws "by means of negligence" and not gross negligence, as the U.S. argued. The judge said that although the company's filing error, in which it failed to declare its goods were subject to antidumping and countervailing duties, was "material," the facts don't show "willful, wanton, or reckless misconduct."
The Commerce Department "exceeded its legal authority" in an anti-circumvention case "by imposing a blanket origin finding" on aluminum wire and cable exporter Tanghenam Electric Wire & Cable when it barred the company from taking part in the agency's program for certifying that an exporter's inputs weren't of Chinese origin, Tanghenam argued in a Nov. 11 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Tanghenam Electric Wire & Cable v. United States, CIT # 25-00049).