International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
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.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Commerce Department has issued the final results of two antidumping duty administrative reviews on cold-drawn mechanical tubing of carbon and alloy steel from India (A-533-873) with respect to Goodluck India Limited. Commerce set an AD rate of 1.59% for subject merchandise from Goodluck entered between Nov. 22, 2017, and May 31, 2019, and an AD rate of 1.39% for subject merchandise from Goodluck entered between June 1, 2019, and May 31, 2020. The rates are unchanged from the preliminary results. The goods will be liquidated at importer-specific assessment rates. The new 1.39% AD cash deposit rate for Goodluck takes effect June 26, the scheduled date of publication for these final results in the Federal Register.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling to overturn a Court of International Trade decision that called into question the use of first sale treatment for imported goods involving non-market economy countries (see 2208110060) is largely seen as providing a welcome relief to importers, several law firms said. "For those importers enjoying the benefits of lower declared values and duties, particularly from China in light of Section 301 tariffs, there is no longer a need for concern now that, on appeal, the court has given first sale a nod," Sandler Travis lawyer Lenny Feldman said on a podcast. The original CIT decision (Meyer Corporation v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-1392) raised some concerns for the future of first sale treatment (see 2104200028).
The Court of International Trade was wrong to consider China's non-market economy status when analyzing whether to grant first sale treatment, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Aug. 11 ruling. The decision overturns and remands a 2021 CIT ruling that said that first sale treatment shouldn't apply for cookware imported by Meyer from Thailand and China through a Chinese middleman because China is a NME.
Goodluck India Limited is again subject to antidumping duties on cold-drawn mechanical tubing from India (A-533-873), after the Commerce Department again amended its antidumping duty order to reinstate the company following a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision. Effective Sept. 10, 2021, subject merchandise from Goodluck will be subject to the 33.7% adjusted AD duty cash deposit rate originally assigned to it in the 2018 AD duty order (see 1806130068).
Five Republican Senators filed an amicus brief on Dec. 15 with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging it to take up a case over the limits of the president's authority under the Section 232 national security tariff statute. The brief, signed by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., argues against a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion spurning time limits imposed in the statute. The time limits are crucial to ensuring that "Congress makes the major policy decisions regarding the regulation of foreign commerce," the lawmakers said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with the Court of International Trade's rejection of CBP regulations that limit the amount of drawback that can be claimed on excise taxes, the CAFC said in a ruling. "We conclude that the expansive definition in the Rule, which extends drawback to situations in which tax is never paid or determined, conflicts with the unambiguous text of the statute," said the CAFC.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a Court of International Trade ruling dismissing an importer's challenge of CBP's assessment of antidumping and countervailing duties, for improper jurisdiction, in a July 14 opinion. The Federal Circuit found that TR International Trading Company, which filed its case under the trade court's Section 1581(i) "residual" jurisdiction provision, could have instead challenged a denied protest under 1581(a) or a scope ruling under 1581(c), rendering Section 1581(i) unavailable.