CBP illegally collected duties on bifacial solar panels after the Court of International Trade struck down the Trump administration's revocation of a tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels, importer Canadian Solar (USA) argued in a complaint at CIT. Given that the trade court found the tariff revocation illegal, CBP no longer can require the importers to pay the safeguard tariff on bifacial solar panels, the brief said. The duties "are substantial and impose a continuing financial burden," Canadian Solar argued (Canadian Solar (USA) Inc. v. United States, CIT #22-00295).
The Court of International Trade should stay proceedings in a case challenging President Donald Trump's reversal of a tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels pending resolution of a similar matter, plaintiffs JinkoSolar (U.S.) Inc. and Jinko Solar (U.S.) Industries argued in an unopposed stay motion (JinkoSolar (U.S.) Inc. v. United States, CIT #22-00241). The case should be halted until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit settles Solar Energy Industries Association, et al. v. United States, the brief said. In that case, the trade court found that the statute did not allow further trade-restricting measures once a tariff exclusion had been put in place (see 2111160032).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department cannot deduct Section 232 national security duties from antidumping duty respondent Borusan Mannesman's U.S. price because the duties are remedial, temporary and deducting them would count as a double remedy, making them unlike normal customs duties, the respondent argued. Filing a reply brief Aug. 4 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the respondent said Commerce failed to conduct a "fulsome analysis" of whether the Section 232 duties are more like normal customs duties or to special duties, like Section 201 safeguards, and instead "confined its analysis" to finding distinctions between Section 232 and Section 201 duties. The agency also failed to acknowledge the "legal and constitutional distinction between regular duties imposed by Congress" and special duties imposed by the president (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2097).
The Commerce Department improperly deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from antidumping duty respondent Nippon Steel Corp.'s (NSC's) U.S. price, the exporter argued in a July 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Becoming the next company to make the claim, NSC argued that Section 232 duties are unlike the ordinary customs duties that are considered U.S. import duties and are in fact "far more similar" to antidumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguard duties, which are not deducted from U.S. price (Nippon Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00183).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
President Donald Trump's move to revoke an exclusion to Section 201 safeguard measures on bifacial solar panels was "particularly pernicious," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Clean Power Association argued in a July 12 amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The amici said that safeguard measures should be applied in a way that's "predictable, circumscribed, and allows for reasonable business planning," and that Trump's move violated these principles. Revoking the exception injected uncertainty into government-imposed safeguard measures, which will have a ripple effect in the economy, potentially making inflation and supply chain crises worse, they said (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1392).
The Court of International Trade properly held that President Donald Trump violated the law by revoking an exclusion on bifacial solar panels from the Section 201 safeguard duties, plaintiff-appellees led by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Invenergy Renewables said in two reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. SEIA, in its brief, along with Nextera Energy, argued that the trade court correctly found that "all the tools of statutory construction" show that the law prevents trade-restrictive changes to the safeguard measure (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1392).
A group of lawmakers is calling the outcry around the anticircumvention case on solar panels made in Southeast Asia "an attempt to undermine the integrity of our trade enforcement laws and the independence of our federal workforce."
Section 232 national security tariffs are not remedial and should not be deducted from an antidumping duty respondent's U.S. price, and their inclusion in that price does not constitute double counting of duties, AD petitioner Nucor Corp. argued in a May 13 reply brief that came in response to arguments to the contrary from Nippon Steel Corp. (Nippon Steel Corporation v. U.S., CIT #21-00533).