Various members of the trade bar speculated that the president's tariff authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act may face serious limits once the Supreme Court issues a decision in the lead cases on President Donald Trump's IEEPA tariffs. Following a Nov. 5 oral argument in which many of the justices appeared skeptical of Trump's sweeping use of the IEEPA to impose tariffs, many lawyers have said change may be coming in the world of trade.
Importer Lanxess argued again Oct. 31 that its polymerization accelerator -- a substance used to accelerate the chemical process of plastic manufacturing -- is properly classified as a “supported catalyst,” not as a chemical preparation (Lanxess Corporation v. United States, CIT # 23-00073).
Fertilizer exporter OCP on Oct. 27 challenged the International Trade Commission's second remand determination that the U.S. industry is materially injured by phosphate fertilizers from Morocco and Russia, arguing that the ITC relied on the "same facts and reasoning" rejected by the Court of International Trade in its previous decision (OCP S.A. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00219).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 30 issued its mandate in a case on the 2019-20 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large diameter welded pipe from Greece. Last month, the court said the Commerce Department reasonably used adverse facts available against respondent Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry for failing to remedy deficiencies in its cost reconciliation submission (see 2509080027). CAFC said Commerce wasn't required to provide Corinth with an opportunity to comment on the agency's analysis that led to the conclusion that the company's reported costs didn't reconcile with its financial accounting system (Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2094).
CBP erroneously found that importer Superon Schweisstechnik's stainless steel round wires aren't coated in a "flux material" and thus misclassified three types of the wires, Superon argued in an Oct. 30 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade. The importer faulted CBP for using the "conventional test methods" on the wires' coating, "rather than the globally recognized specialized methods necessary for identifying" the type of coating on the wires (Superon Schweisstechnik India v. United States, CIT # 21-00570).
The Commerce Department reasonably found that antidumping duty petitioner Habich GmbH isn't affiliated with its North American sales agent and calculated normal value based on Habich's Mexican sales in the 2021-22 administrative review of the AD order on Austrian strontium chromate, the Court of International Trade held on Oct. 29.
Solar cell exporter Trina Solar (Vietnam) Science & Technology Co. said neither the Court of International Trade nor the Commerce Department addressed the exporter's claim that the nature of the production compelled a negative determination in the antidumping and countervailing duties anti-circumvention inquiry on solar cells from Vietnam. Filing comments on Commerce's remand results in a case on the circumvention proceedings, Trina Solar said the court can now address whether the significance of the statutory "nature and production process" factor "can be reconciled with" Commerce's affirmative circumvention finding "when the circumvention provisions were enacted to address 'screwdriver' operations" (Trina Solar (Vietnam) Science & Technology Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00228).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Aluminum printing plate producer Eastman Kodak agreed with the International Trade Commission that exporter Fujifilm’s U.S.-produced products had been injured by Fujifilm's imports (see 2510240049) (Fujifilm North America Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00251).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated between Oct. 20 and Oct. 22 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):