The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Jan. 10. The following headquarters rulings were modified recently, according to CBP:

Retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. cost exporters more than $27 billion from mid-2018 to the end of 2019, with sales to China accounting for about 95% of the losses, USDA said in a new report this month. Although the phase one U.S.-China trade deal and China’s tariff exemption programs helped to “significantly” rebound some U.S. exports to the country, the agency said U.S. market share still remained below pre-retaliatory tariffs levels one year after the deal.

Two “pertinent and significant” decisions at the U.S. Court of International Trade support the arguments of Section 301 test case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its 1974 Trade Act modification authority by imposing the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports and that it violated protections in the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act against sloppy rulemakings, said Akin Gump lawyers for HMTX and Jasco in a notice of supplemental authorities relevant to the Section 301 litigation, posted Monday in docket 1:21-cv-52. Both decisions were handed down after Akin Gump filed its final written brief in the Section 301 case on Nov. 15 (see 2111160003). In Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., decided Nov. 16, the court decided President Donald Trump “acted outside of his delegated authority” when he relied on a modification provision in Section 204 of the Trade Act to increase “safeguard tariffs” to protect the domestic solar panel industry against foreign imports, said Akin Gump. For the purposes of HMTX-Jasco, the court in SEIA said “reading the modification provision as a whole confirms” that Section 307 of the Trade Act “permits only reductions, not increases, in tariff actions,” as HMTX and Jasco argued, it said. The court’s opinion in Invenergy Renewables LLC v. U.S., decided Nov. 17, “likewise supports” the Section 301 plaintiffs’ arguments on APA violations when it vacated a USTR rule because the agency didn’t adequately address the significant comments “raised by opponents of the rule USTR adopted,” said Akin Gump. Oral argument in the Section 301 test case is scheduled for Feb. 1.

Two “pertinent and significant” decisions at the Court of International Trade support the arguments of Section 301 test case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its Trade Act of 1974 modification authority by imposing the lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports and that it violated protections in the Administrative Procedure Act against sloppy rulemakings, Akin Gump lawyers for HMTX and Jasco said in a notice of supplemental authorities relevant to the Section 301 litigation. Both decisions were handed down after Akin Gump filed its final written brief in the Section 301 case on Nov. 15 (see 2111160010).

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SVS CEO Gary Yacoubian wants people to imagine waking up one morning, and finding "your cost of goods just went up by 15%” overnight, he told a CES 2022 trade and supply chain workshop Wednesday on the Section 301 tariffs on finished speakers and subwoofers that SVS imports from China. Speakers and subwoofers with List 4A tariff exposure were originally dutied at 10% when they took effect in September 2019 (see 1908160014), and were later raised to 15%, then cut to 7.5% with the February 2020 enactment of the phase one trade deal with China.

Gary Yacoubian, CEO of high-end speaker company SVS wants people to imagine going to bed one night, “and you wake up the next morning, and your cost of goods just went up by 15%,” he told a CES 2022 trade and supply chain workshop Jan. 5 of the Section 301 tariffs on finished speakers and subwoofers his company imports from China. Speakers and subwoofers with List 4A tariff exposure were originally dutied at 10% when they took effect in September 2019, and were later raised to 15%, then cut to 7.5% with the February 2020 enactment of the phase one trade deal with China.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

CBP misclassified Mitsubishi Power America's supported selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalysts, resulting in the entries wrongly being assessed Section 301 duties, the importer argued in a Jan. 4 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Instead, the supported SCR catalysts fit under a different Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading that was granted an exclusion to the Section 301 China tariffs by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the importer said (Mitsubishi Power Americas v. U.S., CIT #21-00573).