Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recently introduced a bill that would require the president to hike tariffs on Chinese battery components, solar energy components and wind energy components by 25%. Those goods are currently subject to 25% Section 301 tariffs. The bill also would require that tariff rate to rise by 5 percentage points each year, for five years, until it reaches 50%.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 26 - March 3:

DOJ attorney Melissa Patterson withdrew from the massive Section 301 case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a March 1 notice. Patterson, who has worked as an assistant director to the solicitor general since 2019, joined the case in November (see 2311200046) (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).

Funding for the next seven months for the trade-related divisions of the Commerce Department will be down slightly, though fees may more than make up the difference at the International Trade Administration, if projections are accurate. These are considerations as Congress eyes finalizing an appropriations bill by the end of the workweek.

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commissioner Kimberly Glas, calling e-commerce "a superhighway of the Wild West," asked witnesses at a hearing on Chinese exports and product safety if de minimis is a major contributor to unsafe products.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and 40 other House Democrats are asking Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas "to crack down on the de minimis trade loopholes allowing cheap fast-fashion products to flow into the U.S."

The U.S. in a Feb. 27 motion defended its decision to calculate energy costs for a review's mandatory respondent directly, rather than as part of the respondent's selling, general and administrative costs, saying that the calculation was made more accurate because the Commerce Department had been given better information from a surrogate than it had ever received before (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00068).

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

Sen. Josh Hawley wants the baseline tariff on cars made by Chinese companies to be 100%, not 2.5%, and to apply whether those cars are assembled in China, Thailand, Brazil, Hungary or Mexico.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 19-25: