The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 10 stayed the Court of International Trade's permanent injunction on all of President Donald Trump's executive orders implementing tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act pending the appeal of the case. In a per curium order, all CAFC judges in regular active service said "a stay is warranted under the circumstances." In addition, the court said all active judges will hear the case, as opposed to the court's traditional three-judge panel approach, in light of the "issues of exceptional importance" presented by the matter.
U.S. domestic manufacturers voiced lukewarm support for trade action, but unanimous concern about the potential scope of the investigation on Section 232 tariffs on imports of critical minerals, in public comments to the Bureau of Industry and Security.
Importer Hellbender filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on June 6 arguing that its electronic components are of Taiwanese origin, not Chinese origin, and are thus exempt from Section 301 duties (Hellbender v. United States, CIT # 24-00104).
CBP updated its recent guidance on Section 232 tariffs to remove tariff schedule numbers that had apparently been erroneously included as subject to steel and aluminum tariffs.
The importers challenging the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act requested that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reject the government's bid for an emergency stay, telling the appellate court that the importers will be irreparably harmed by the stay while the president "is not harmed by the denial of authority he does not legally possess" (V.O.S. Selections v. Donald J. Trump, Fed. Cir. # 25-1812).
In attachments to a pair of recent CSMS messages (see 2506040053), CBP listed the following new tariff schedule subheadings as subject to 50% Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, even though these tariff subheadings aren’t found in the list of subheadings subject to the 50% tariffs in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule:
CBP will be increasing the number of Harmonized Tariff Schedule numbers allowed per entry summary line in ACE from eight to 32, the agency said in a June 6 cargo systems message.
Expert witnesses testified that the Harmonized Tariff Schedule code needs to be refined so that different sizes of semiconductor chips have their own numbers, and, more radically, suggested that the best way to mitigate overdependence on China for legacy chips is to require importers to report where the chips were designed and fabricated within products they are importing.
As importers respond to swift changes in the deployment of Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum (see 2506030071), they should continue to follow due diligence protocols for entry filing -- and that means even when CBP's guidance on additional subheadings for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties doesn't fully align with what's in official documents, such as the Federal Register, multiple customs attorneys told International Trade Today.
China this week criticized the Trump administration's decision to double tariffs on steel and aluminum, saying the tariffs will backfire on the U.S. and “seriously disrupt the stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain.”