US Says CBP's R&R Legally Reversed TRLED's Evasion Finding Based on 'Circumstantial' Info
CBP's Office of Regulations & Rulings legally reversed the Trade Remedy & Law Enforcement Directorate's finding that Dominican company Kingtom Aluminio evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the U.S. argued in an Aug. 23 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The government said that OR&R lawfully decided not to apply adverse inferences against Kingtom as requested by petitioner Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. United States, CIT # 22-00236).
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The petitioner said adverse inferences are warranted since Kingtom allegedly threatened physical violence toward its employees in order to get them to stop speaking with CBP employees at the verification visit and purportedly destroyed documents. The U.S. first established that even if CBP can impose adverse inferences, it doesn't have to since the agency is under no obligation to make this move.
The government added that the record doesn't show any instances in which Kingtom refused to provide any requested information to CBP despite the "troubling allegations." The accusations of intimidation and threats are in fact undercut by the exporter's active participation in the review, the brief said.
The U.S. went on to argue that record evidence doesn't support TRLED's initial finding of evasion. The record doesn't show "widespread discrepancies" evidencing evasion, the government claimed after looking at Kingtom's production records, sales, attendance and payroll, raw material purchases and suppliers, and financial records.
Kingtom's "Chinese ties" don't provide proof of evasion either, the brief said. While the allegation only showed overall import data of aluminum extrusions from other nations, including China, into the Dominican Republic, it "does not show Kingtom as the importer of such goods." TRLED only "inferred" that the extrusions shipped to the U.S. were of Chinese origin, leading the evasion decision to be based on "circumstantial information," the government clarified.