A domestic manufacturer filed petitions on Jan. 22 with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission requesting new antidumping duties on difluoromethane (R-32) from China. Commerce will now decide whether to begin an AD duty investigation on the refrigerant. The investigation was requested by Arkema.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on Jan. 28. The following headquarters rulings not involving carriers were modified on Jan. 27 or 28, according to CBP:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Jan. 21-24 in case they were missed.
The Presidential Proclamation establishing new Section 232 tariffs on finished goods of steel and aluminum and the annexes detailing the covered goods is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on Jan. 29. The new 10 percent tariffs on aluminum goods and 25 percent tariffs on steel goods are set to take effect on Feb. 8 (see 2001250003).
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security posted the two annexes from the recently announced expansion of Section 232 tariffs on goods made from steel and aluminum. The annex for aluminum products lists six subheadings covering types of wire and automobile stampings. The annex for the steel products includes four subheadings that cover types of nails, tacks and automobile stampings.
When the new 25 percent Section 232 tariffs go into effect on finished steel products, approximately $800 million in goods will be affected, according to International Trade Commission data for the last full year of imports. That does not include more than $100 million in imports from South Korea, Mexico and Canada that will be exempt from the new policy.
If TCL North America does not get the exclusions it seeks from the 15 percent List 4A Section 301 tariffs it has paid since Sept. 1 on flat-panel TV imports from China, it wants the Trump administration to weigh “reallocating” TVs to List 4B where there’s no current tariff exposure, the vendor said. TCL filed three separate exemption requests Jan. 23 at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative public docket on tariff schedule subheadings 8528.72.64.30, 8528.72.64.40 and 8528.72.64.60, covering TV imports that vary by screen size. The “sole available source of LCD panels and supporting material components is China,” it said in all three applications.
The Agricultural Marketing Service is updating its table of marketing order fee assessment rates on importers of cattle, beef, veal and beef products. The agency issued a direct final rule Jan. 8 that incorporates into the table some recent changes the International Trade Commission has made to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. AMS subsequently issued a correction to some errors in that table. The new rate schedule takes effect Feb. 7.
CBP is awaiting official guidance from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for how to handle goods from China that fall under the six extended Section 301 exclusions (see 1912190060), a CBP official said during a Jan. 23 conference call. While USTR extended those exclusions beyond the Dec. 28, 2019, expiration date, the Harmonized Tariff Schedule code for those exclusions, 9903.88.05, became unusable after that date. A Federal Register notice from USTR will be necessary, the official said.
A pump assembly assembled in Mexico is subject to Section 301 duties, even though the electric motor that powers the pump is the only Chinese component and all of the other parts are Mexican, CBP said in a recent ruling. The assembly process in Mexico does not result in a substantial transformation of the motor, so the pump assembly remains a product of China, CBP said in HQ H303864, issued Dec. 26 and posted to the agency's CROSS database Jan. 9.