Exporter's Cabinets Covered by AD/CVD on Wooden Cabinets From China, CIT Says
Exporter Nanjing Kaylang's cabinets made from processed phragmite, a type of reed, were reasonably found by the Commerce Department to fall under antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on wooden cabinets from China, Court of International Trade Judge Thomas Aquilino ruled Feb. 21.
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Kaylang had argued that the products were actually vegetable products and that language of the orders “unambiguously only covers articles of wood” (see 2408280008).
The orders’ language covers wooden cabinets and vanities made from either solid wood or “engineered wood products (including those made from wood particles, fibers, or other wooden materials such as plywood, strand board, block board, particle board, or fiber board), or bamboo," the judge said. He noted that Commerce agreed in its own filings that phragmite isn’t wood, but argued that “it undergoes a manufacturing process that is very similar to the process used to make particle boards, resulting in the production of phragmite particle board, a ligneous board of a woody nature."
“Although redundant, ‘ligneous’ succinctly captures [Commerce’s] rationale, since it means ‘[o]f the nature of wood,’” he said.
He agreed with Commerce that the phrase “engineered wood” was ambiguous, saying that “[a] hyphen would have helped clarify whether the scope encompasses ‘engineered-wood products’ or ‘engineered wood-products.’” The judge also said the terms “fiberboard” and “particleboard” in the orders weren’t necessarily limited to only wood fibers, as it “appears unmodified and unqualified.”
“This court will not read into it any further qualification, when it would have been a simple matter for the domestic industry to clearly state ‘wood fibers’ if such fibers had been their scope intent,” he said.
He next turned to k(1) sources, including CBP rulings and the World Trade Organization’s “explanatory notes on classification.” He determined, based on a domestic producer’s response to Kaylang's scope request and classification decisions previously made by CBP and the International Trade Commission, that particle board was understood in industry terms to sometimes be made of reed, and that bamboo, which is explicitly covered by the orders and “classified as wood,” is in the “same family of grasses as phragmites.”
(Nanjing Kaylang v. United States, Slip Op. 25-19, CIT # 24-00045, dated 2/21/2025; Judge: Thomas Aquilino; Attorneys: David Craven of Craven Trade Law for plaintiff Nanjing Kaylang; Ashley Akers for defendant U.S. government; and Luke Meisner of Schagrin Associates for defendant-intervenor American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance)