The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 8 heard oral argument in the massive Section 301 litigation, primarily probing the litigants' positions regarding how to interpret the term "modify" in the statute and whether the statute allows the U.S. trade representative to impose duties in response to retaliatory measures from China (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of Dec. 16-22 and 23-29:
President-elect Donald Trump announced his plans to nominate Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden to be deputy secretary of agriculture. Vaden joined the court in 2020 after working in Trump's first administration as USDA's general counsel. Posting the announcement on Truth Social, the president-elect said that at the agency, Vaden "relocated and reorganized the Agencies that comprise the Department to better serve Rural America, and engaged in substantial regulatory reform."
The U.S. charged three international drug traffickers last week with conspiracy to import fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals and importing a fentanyl precursor chemical, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced. The indictment brought charges against Xiang Gao, a Chinese national; Oleksandr Klochkov, a Ukrainian national; and Igors Kricfalusijs, a Latvian national.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 19 declined to grant victory to G&H Diversified Manufacturing on the importer's claims that CBP previously, as part of its role in granting a Section 232 duty exclusion, already said the company's imports were subject to the exclusion. Judge Timothy Reif said open questions of fact still exist with regard to the extent of CBP's role in the exclusion process.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 9-15:
A Canadian resident convicted of trafficking in counterfeit goods was sentenced to serve 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $4.8 million in restitution, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York announced.
The Commerce Department failed to consider whether U.S. Steel Corp. had the capacity to fill the aggregate of importer California Steel Industries' Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests as opposed to just assessing whether U.S. Steel could fill all of them individually, the Court of International Trade held on Nov. 13. Judge M. Miller Baker added that Commerce didn't address its concession that it couldn't timely supply more slab than contracted for with California Steel.
The U.S. warned World Trade Organization members this week against adjudicating national security matters, saying in a communication that they should instead bring a "non-violation claim" that would allow for the rebalancing of trade concessions and avoid "dragging" members into debates over political issues.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 2-8: