The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 ruled that steel tubing with insulating material imported by Shamrock Building Materials is classifiable as steel tubes of heading 7306, rather than insulated conduit of heading 8547, subjecting the steel tubing to 25% Section 232 tariffs.
Harmonized Tariff Schedule
The Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) is a reference manual that provides duty rates for almost every item that exists. It is a system of classifying and taxing all goods imported into the United States. The HTS is based on the international Harmonized System, which is a global standard for naming and describing trade products, and consists of a hierarchical structure that assigns a specific code and rate to each type of merchandise for duty, quota, and statistical purposes. The HTS was made effective on January 1, 1989, replacing the former Tariff Schedules of the United States. It is maintained by the U.S. International Trade Commission, but the Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for interpreting and enforcing the HTS.
NEW YORK -- Three judges at the Court of International Trade offered tips to practitioners arguing before the court during an event at the court's judicial conference earlier this month. Judges Jennifer Choe-Groves, Claire Kelly and Gary Katzmann discussed tips for brief writing, oral argument and filing extension requests, laying out personal preferences and common areas where counsel goes wrong.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 affirmed CBP's classification of steel tubing with a thin interior coating mainly made of epoxy, melamine and silicon additives under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 7306, which covers certain iron or steel tubes and pipes. Judges Richard Taranto, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham said the goods, imported by Shamrock Building Materials, don't fit under heading 8547, which covers electrical conduit tubing lined with insulating material because the heading requires "commercially significant insulation of the conduit against current flow" -- which Shamrock's tubing doesn't have. The result is a 25% Section 232 tariff on the imports.
Defendant-intervenors opposed Oct. 15 an exporter’s motion for judgment, supporting an affirmative Commerce Department circumvention determination regarding circular welded steel pipe imports from Vietnam. The department claimed the pipe actually originated from South Korea, India and China (SeAH Steel Vina Corp. v. United States, CIT Consol. #s 23-00256, -00257, -00258).
A German exporter of forged steel fluid end blocks brought a complaint Oct. 16 to the Court of International Trade arguing that the Commerce Department, in a review of the antidumping duty order on its products, illegally expanded the scope of the AD order to include forged steel products that weren’t fluid end blocks (BGH Edelstahl Siegen GmbH v. U.S., CIT # 24-00176).
Importer Cozy Comfort Co. and the U.S. submitted additional briefing ahead of their trial next week at the Court of International Trade on the tariff classification of The Comfy -- a wearable blanket imported by Cozy Comfort (Cozy Comfort Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00173).
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 15 limited the scope of the testimony that will be offered by two of the government's witnesses in a customs spat on the classification of The Comfy, a wearable blanket imported by Cozy Comfort Co. Judge Stephen Vaden said fashion industry professional Patricia Concannon can testify only on topics related to the "sale, marketing, and merchandising of apparel," and that CBP national import specialist Renee Orsat "may not testify about opinions she formed during the Customs’ classification process."
In response to a U.S. claim that it couldn't move for a motion on its pleadings before issues of fact were settled by discovery (see 2409260061), an importer of tubing for perforating guns said Oct. 15 that it was “impossible” for CBP to find that one of its products should have been classified under a different Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading between the time the importer sought a Section 232 exclusion request and the time it shipped its entry into the country (G&H Diversified Manufacturing v. U.S., CIT # 22-00130).
Georgia woman Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois filed a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade on Oct. 14 contesting four questions on the October 2021 customs broker license exam, claiming that the questions "lacked sufficient information" that would have allowed her to make an "informed choice." Stoute-Francois added that some of the questions "unreasonably called for knowledge" that a test taker "would have no reasonable basis to possess" and that CBP "failed to adequately explain its decision to deny" her credit for some of the questions (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: