The president may impose greater Section 232 national security tariffs beyond the 105-day timeframe for action set out in the statute, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a July 13 ruling. Overturning a lower court ruling, the Federal Circuit found that the underlying law's deadline for the president to take "action" can refer to a "plan of action" carried out over a period of time following the 105-day deadline. That authority is not unlimited, though, in that modifications must be related to the underlying reasoning for the tariffs and those reasons can't be "stale," CAFC said.
Steel exporter Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret will appeal a June 16 Court of International Trade decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a June 21 notice of appeal. In the decision, Judge Jane Restani sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping administrative review of circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey. The remand results dropped any adjustments made to the sales-below-cost test relating to a particular market situation (see 2106170026). Restani said that PMS adjustments are only allowed when calculating normal value based on constructed value, as opposed to normal value based on home market sales (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00015).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Two steel importers, voestalpine USA and Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel, want refunds for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid on imports of alloy steel since the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security published a Section 232 exclusion with the wrong Harmonized Tariff Schedule code, they said in a June 18 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade. Voestalpine and Bilstein say the HTS error was only remedied after the imports had been liquidated and that no protest option was available to apply the exclusions after liquidation (voestalpine USA LLC et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00290).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping administrative review of an antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey, dropping any adjustments to the sales-below-cost test it made after finding a particular market situation, in a one-page June 16 decision.
A far-reaching legal challenge to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs brought by ME Global was stayed by the Court of International Trade pending an appeal of a related case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a June 14 stay order (ME Global, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00130) The Federal Circuit case, Universal Steel Products, Inc. v. United States, carries arguments similar to those in ME Global's case in that both claim that procedural requirements were ignored in President Donald Trump's expansion of the tariffs (see 2105250077).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A group of steel importers, after suffering a defeat in the Court of International Trade, brought their broad challenge to the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing that the statute includes procedural requirements that were ignored in President Donald Trump's expansion of the tariffs. Filing its opening brief on May 24, the importers say that plain use of the mandatory word "shall" throughout Section 232 means the procedural requirements, such as an underlying report from the Commerce Department precipitating tariff action, are required. The steel importers also again argued that the commerce secretary's report is considered final agency action, ready for judicial review (Universal Steel Products, Inc. et al., v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1726).
U.S. Steel Corp. told the Court of International Trade May 19 that the public release of the administrative record in a case involving Section 232 exclusions should entitle the company to the right to intervene in the case. “Among the reasons U. S. Steel cited in support of its right to intervene was the use and contextualization of factual information supplied by U. S. Steel to Commerce,” the company told the court. The Commerce Department's inadvertent released of this information means U.S. Steel's “fear has been realized,” the company said.