Sonos shares closed 15.7% higher Thursday at $36.44 after the company upgraded up its revenue outlook for the fiscal year ending late September. Revenue was higher in all key metrics, said CEO Patrick Spence on an investor call for fiscal Q1, ended Jan. 2. The company now forecasts 15%-19% growth for the year, up to $1.52 billion-$1.57 billion from $1.4 billion-$1.5 billion.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says in a Federal Register notice to be published Feb. 12 that in light of the January revision to the tariff targets, the government and industry agree there is no need for revision this month regarding the Section 301 investigation involving “the enforcement of U.S. rights in the World Trade Organization dispute involving Large Civil Aircraft subsidies provided by certain current or former member States of the European Union.” This exception to the periodic revisions is effective Feb. 8.

President Donald Trump didn't get China to agree to much in the way of structural changes, panelists said, but Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Wendy Cutler said he put China front and center on the agenda, which was good. “He was really willing to take on the business community when it came to China,” she said. Cutler, who worked at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for more than 25 years, said that when she was at USTR, one of her frustrations in trying to negotiate with China was that U.S. “companies were pretty conflicted. They liked the … money they were making. They wanted us to be quote, unquote tough with China, but they didn’t want to be part of the get-tough strategy. Our hands were tied in a way.”

The U.S. Court of International Trade gave DOJ a March 12 deadline for filing a “master answer” of its defenses “in law or fact” to the roughly 3,500 complaints filed since September to get the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods vacated and the duties refunded, said a procedural order (in Pacer) signed Wednesday by the three-judge panel assigned Friday to handle the massive litigation (see 2102050038). DOJ’s answer on behalf of all the defendants shouldn't attempt to “cross-reference” specific paragraphs in the various complaints, but “in a ‘generic’ manner admit or deny (including denials based on lack of information and belief) the allegations typically included in claims made against them as well as make such additional allegations as are appropriate to their defenses,” said the order. It would be DOJ’s first opportunity to defend the allegations in virtually all the complaints that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under the Trump administration overstepped its Section 301 authority when it imposed the retaliatory Lists 3 and 4A tariffs against the Chinese and violated the Administrative Procedure Act by conducting tariff rulemakings that lacked transparency. Judges Mark Barnett, Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves devised a “master case” procedure “to reduce the time and expense of duplicate filings of documents,” said the order. When DOJ files its answer in the new master case docket 21-cv00052-3JP, the document “will constitute an answer” in each Section 301 case already filed and yet to be filed in the future, except when DOJ later files “a separate answer in an individual case,” it said. Lawyers in the early going of the Section 301 litigation complained DOJ broke court rules when it filed procedural papers only in the docket of the first-filed HMTX Industries/Jasco Products case, and not in each of the dockets of the thousands of cases that followed. When pleadings, motions and other relevant documents are docketed in the master case, it will be as if they have been docketed in all the individual cases, said the order. Documents germane only to a specific case would still be filed in the individual case's docket, it said.

The Court of International Trade will use a “master case” to reduce the time and expense of duplicate filings in the more than 3,700 lawsuits against President Donald Trump's lists 3 and 4A Section 301 China tariffs, CIT Judge Mark Barnett said in a Feb. 10 order. Barnett also gave the government defense until March 12, 2021, to submit its first defense, barring no motions to extend time to file. These procedural steps pertain to the copious number of Section 301 cases that were assigned to a three-panel judge at CIT on Feb. 5 (see 2102050008).

President Donald Trump didn't get China to agree to much in the way of structural changes, panelists said, but Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Wendy Cutler said he put China front and center on the agenda, which was good. “He was really willing to take on the business community when it came to China,” she said. Cutler, who worked at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for more than 25 years, said that when she was at USTR, one of her frustrations in trying to negotiate with China was that U.S. “companies were pretty conflicted. They liked the … money they were making. They wanted us to be quote, unquote tough with China, but they didn’t want to be part of the get-tough strategy. Our hands were tied in a way.”

U.S. importers sourced 57.37 million smartphones in Q4 under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule’s 8517.12.00 subheading, according to Census Bureau data we accessed through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. It was a 19.3% increase sequentially and 7.2% decline from the 61.82 million shipped here in the 2019 quarter. Evidence of the iPhone 12's market impact was clear in the sharp spike in Q4 smartphone imports from China.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb.1-7:

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Feb. 1-5 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

A panel of scholars and a former general consul in Hong Kong agreed that the Biden administration is likely to place more emphasis on export controls and industrial policy to support domestic semiconductor production, and less on the trade deficit and tariffs, even as the new president has to decide what to do about Section 301 tariffs at some point. They were speaking on a virtual panel about U.S.-China relations hosted by the Washington International Trade Association on Feb. 8.