The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 4 issued its mandate in a case on the president's ability to make trade-restrictive modifications to Section 201 safeguards. In August, the court partially reconsidered its initial decision finding that the president can make such adjustments (see 2408130019). The court conducted a de novo review of the applicable statute in its decision following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which said courts can't defer to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes. The appellate court issued its mandate in the case after the Solar Energy Industries Association didn't appeal the matter to the Supreme Court (Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).
Section 201 Safeguards
Section 201 or “safeguard” actions are steps the President can take to provide temporary relief for an industry through the imposition of tariffs or quotas to create a more competitive environment for said industry. Section 201 actions are considered consistent with U.S. international obligations if they conform to the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Safeguards. To enact Section 201 Safeguards, a U.S. company must first file a complaint with the International Trade Commission, which then makes a determination if the industry is injured by the importation of the goods in question. If the investigation is affirmative, the President may enact the safeguards.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 13 opinion again affirmed the president's ability to make trade-restrictive modifications to Section 201 safeguard tariffs. Judges Alan Lourie, Richard Taranto and Leonard Stark partially granted a group of solar cell exporters' motion for panel rehearing of its 2023 decision, which came to the same conclusion, so that the court could conduct a de novo review of the applicable statute, instead of reviewing whether the president's interpretation of the law was a "clear misconstruction" of the statute.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated April 30 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 following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 19 invited the U.S. to respond to a petition from solar panel exporters, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association, to reconsider the case on President Donald Trump's decision to revoke a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels. The court asked for a response by Feb. 2 (Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).
Solar panel exporters, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association, urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to rehear their case on President Donald Trump's decision to revoke a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels (Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).
Turkish duties on a host of U.S. products in retaliation for President Donald Trump's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs violate World Trade Organization commitments, a WTO dispute panel ruled Dec. 19. The panel said the duties violate articles I and II of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and also found that the Section 232 duties are not "safeguards."
Solar panel exporters are hoping to extend the deadline to file a petition for reheraing en banc with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a case on whether President Donald Trump legally revoked a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels. Asking the court for 14 more days to file the petition, the exporters, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association, said "good cause" exists for the extension (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).
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President Donald Trump didn't clearly misconstrue the statute when he revoked a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Nov. 13. Granting the president wider discretion to make modifications to Section 201 duties, Judges Alan Lourie, Richard Taranto and Leonard Stark said that the statute -- Section 2254(b)(1)(B) of the Trade Act of 1930 -- allows for trade-restricting modifications, as opposed to only trade-liberalizing ones.