The Commerce Department unreasonably found that a sales-based particular market situation doesn't exist in Turkey, thus erring in picking Turkey as a third country comparison market in the antidumping duty investigation on melamine from Qatar, petitioner Cornerstone Chemical Co. argued in a Feb. 7 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Cornerstone Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00005).
The Commerce Department erred in using a country-wide adverse facts available rate in calculating the antidumping duty rate for the separate rate respondents, importers led by Galleher Corp. argued in an opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Galleher argued the use of the AFA rate "punishes" the separate rate firms for respondent Sino-Maple's "lack of cooperation" and leads to an "aberrational margin that does not bear any relationship to the actual dumping margins of the separate rate companies" (Fuson Jinlong Wooden Group Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1196).
China opened a dispute at the World Trade Organization on Feb. 5 to challenge the new 10% tariff imposed by the U.S. on all goods from China, claiming that the measure violates the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. China said that not only do the duties violate the U.S. government's "Schedule of Concessions and Commitments," they're also "discriminatory and protectionist in nature."
President Donald Trump's decision to eliminate the duty-free de minimis threshold for goods from China, issued as part of his 10% tariff hike on Chinese products, likely will face legal challenges due to the economic importance of the de minimis rule, customs attorney Lawrence Friedman told us. However, many questions remain on the precise scope of any resulting change, along with the legal theory underpinning it.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on Jan. 27 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Commerce Department must more fully explain its calculation methodology used to account for the differences in volumes of lumber purchased by exporter Les Produits Forestiers D&G and its affiliate, Les Produits Forestiers Portbec, from unaffiliated suppliers, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Jan. 29. Judge Mark Barnett said the U.S. failed to "clarify Commerce's decision-making" behind the calculation in the expedited countervailing duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada.
After the Trump administration released a memo outlining the scope of trade action to be taken during his term, one thing became clear, according to a variety of trade attorneys: antidumping duty and countervailing duty rates are about to soar.
Responding to opposition to its motion for judgment, steel importer CME Acquisitions said “judicial and administrative precedent” still support pulling forward prior calculated antidumping duty rates for non-selected respondents to a review when all selected respondents are hit with adverse facts available (CME Acquisitions v. United States, CIT # 24-00032).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Vietnamese circular welded steel pipe exporter SeAH Steel Vina denied in a Jan. 13 brief that it was confusing antidumping and countervailing duty reviews with circumvention inquiries. Leaning on Loper Bright, it again argued that circumvention inquiries can’t be conducted into the same products from the same countries if they were previously found not to have been dumped or subsidized (SeAH Steel Vina Corp. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 23-00256, -00257, -00258).