Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Steel importer Seneca Foods Corp. urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 21 to overturn the Commerce Department's rejection of its Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests, claiming its approach to exclusion requests "sought to ensure that the President's aims" in imposing the tariffs "would be fully realized." Seneca said the fact that U.S. Steel Corp., which objected to Seneca's requests, "declined to supply the very same volumes for which Seneca sought exclusions should be dispositive" (Seneca Foods Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1310).
The Court of International Trade upheld on Feb. 25 the Commerce Department's inclusion of Precision Components' low-carbon steel blanks in the scope of the antidumping duty order on tapered roller bearings from China. Judge Joseph Laroski said Commerce was entirely in line when it considered a prior scope ruling asked for by Precision and concluded that the products at issue in the prior scope ruling were identical to the products considered in the subsequent scope case.
Fourteen models of passenger vehicle and light truck wheels imported by Keystone Automotive Industries aren’t subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel wheels 12 to 16.5 inches in diameter from China (A-570-090/C-570-091), the Commerce Department announced in a Feb. 24 scope ruling. Keystone’s wheels can’t be used for trailers, it explained.
Anti-forced labor advocacy group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) doesn't have standing to challenge CBP's failure to respond to a withhold release order petition to ban cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire, the U.S. argued in a Feb. 20 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The government claimed that IRAdvocates has not established that it suffered an "injury in fact." It also said any alleged injury isn't "traceable" to the "non-issuance of a WRO," and that the alleged injury isn't "redressable" by CBP (International Rights Advocates v. Kristi Noem, Fed. Cir. # 24-2316).
The Commerce Department properly included Asia Wheel Co.'s trailer wheels made of Chinese rims and Thai discs in the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on steel trailer wheels from China, the Court of International Trade held in a pair of nearly identical decisions. Judge Gary Katzmann said that Commerce didn't illegally expand the scope of the orders since the agency left open the possibility in the original AD/CVD investigations to discuss mixed-origin wheels in a later scope ruling.
In a reply brief Feb. 18, domestic petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition again argued that a review respondent’s conversion costs calculation should have been based only on its towers’ physical characteristics, not its monthly production quantity (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT # 24-00070).
The Commerce Department continued to find on remand at the Court of International Trade that respondent Louis Dreyfus Co. Sucos S.A. and an unnamed supplier, dubbed "Supplier A," are not affiliated, nor are they partners. The agency said it's important to "distinguish 'exclusivity' from 'reliance'" in conducting affiliation analyses, noting that an exclusive relationship with a supplier doesn't mean a party isn't "perfectly capable of acting independently if the exclusive relationship is no longer in its interests" (Ventura Coastal v. United States, CIT # 23-00009).
The U.S. said Feb. 7 that importer Mitsubishi’s catalyst blocks were actually filters, despite the importer’s arguments otherwise, and thus was properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8421 and assessed Section 301 tariffs (Mitsubishi Power Americas v. United States, CIT # 21-00573).
The Supreme Court's holding in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which eliminated the concept of deferring to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, "does not affect" the Court of International Trade's review of the differential pricing analysis, the U.S. argued in a Feb. 14 brief (Government of Canada v. United States, CIT # 23-00187).