The Department of Justice appears to be digging in for a fight over the issue of refund relief against the thousands of Section 301 plaintiffs inundating the Court of International Trade seeking to have it declare the lists 3 and 4A Chinese tariffs unlawful. The government won’t support a stipulation in which the plaintiffs, if successful in the massive litigation, could seek refunds of all tariffs paid, regardless of the imports’ liquidation status, including whether the 12-month window on protesting individual liquidations has expired, a DOJ response filed March 26 said.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for public comments on trade actions for retaliatory tariffs on Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom related to their digital services taxes, to preserve options before the statutory one-year time period for completing a Section 301 investigation. “The United States is committed to working with its trading partners to resolve its concerns with digital services taxes, and to addressing broader issues of international taxation,” USTR Katherine Tai said. “The United States remains committed to reaching an international consensus through the OECD process on international tax issues. However, until such a consensus is reached, we will maintain our options under the Section 301 process, including, if necessary, the imposition of tariffs.”
CBP's consideration of the value that would be added with continuing education for customs brokers requirements remains a “work in progress,” said Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner-trade, during a March 25 call with reporters. Smith, whose last day before retirement is March 26 (see 2103170057), said CBP received “a lot of comments” and “across the board, there were a number of concerns that were raised that we are going to have to think through whether the value of requiring continuing professional education outweighs” the costs. “We've got some good insight into how we could analyze those costs and benefits,” she said.
On the same day that 37 trade associations worked to draw attention to a renewed push to eliminate Section 232 tariffs, a left of center think tank published a paper disagreeing with the arguments that the Tariff Reform Coalition is making, that steel and aluminum sanctions cost more jobs in manufacturing than they saved at primary steel producers.
The International Trade Commission on March 17 published Revision 1 to the Basic Edition of the 2021 Harmonized Tariff Schedule. This latest edition implements the four-month suspension of Section 301 tariffs on goods from the European Union imposed as part of the Airbus subsidy dispute at the World Trade Organization (see 2103050036).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 15-21:
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from March 15-19 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
When members of Congress had the opportunity to publicly tout their priorities for legislation this year at the House Ways and Means Committee, most of the Democrats emphasized social spending and ending the cap on state and local tax deductions on personal income taxes more than traditional infrastructure projects. Only one Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, spoke at the March 23 hearing, to say that Republicans would boycott the hearing because holding a hearing without any expert witnesses was just a cover for “another multi-trillion, one-sided spending bill.”
Lawyers for the roughly 3,700 Section 301 complaints inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade reached consensus on picking the first-filed HMTX Industries-Jasco Products action as the sole sample case in the massive litigation and on seating 15 among their ranks for the plaintiffs’ steering committee, HMTX-Jasco counsel Akin Gump said in the lawyers’ “coordinated proposal” March 19. Though plaintiffs “cannot guarantee 100% agreement on every issue on behalf of every single counsel,” they are “not aware of any objection to this proposal after repeated consultations and opportunities for review,” it said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 8-14: