CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
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.
Donald Trump's return to the White House brings a "lack of predictability," Baker McKenzie attorneys said during a webinar last week on how threatened tariffs could affect countries around the globe.
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.
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.
Running a large trade surplus with the U.S. is only one way to draw President-elect Donald Trump's tariff fire, argues a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation; other ways would be by expecting the U.S. to provide a defense umbrella, enacting digital services taxes or other anti-U.S. regulations, and taking what ITIF called "soft positions toward China."
The Steel Manufacturers Association is asking President-elect Donald Trump to curtail current Section 232 quota restrictions and to end Section 232 exemptions for some Mexican products, to expand Section 232 to more downstream products, and greatly narrow exclusions to the tariffs.
The exclusion process for Section 301 tariffs was understandable in one regard -- requests for goods linked to China's technology supremacy strategy known as Made in China 2025 were less likely to be successful.
President Joe Biden nominated Jim Coughlan, the Export-Import Bank's general counsel, and Haile Craig, a Republican nominee, for the International Trade Commission on Nov 21.
Members of the House Ways and Means Committee majority, who will lead the extension or expansion of the first Trump term income tax cuts, are expressing some hesitancy about using tariffs as a pay-for.