In a May 9 ruling, Court of International Trade Judge Claire Kelly held that importer Kent Displays’ children’s e-writing tablets from China were finished electronic goods under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8543, as the government argued, not duty-free LCD screens under heading 9301, as the importer claimed. The holding mooted the dispute about whether Kent’s entry was exempt from Section 301 duties, as at the time the goods were imported, the tariff doesn't cover the relevant tariff subheading. Instead, the importer will owe a 2.6% duty (Kent Displays v. U.S., CIT # 20-00156).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 6 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The U.S. swapped out its lead attorney in a case challenging CBP's denial of a Section 301 exclusion for its entries of "steel side protective attachments for motor vehicles, specifically side bars, fern bars, and bars." The government said Brandon Kennedy, a DOJ trade trial attorney, took the place of Edward Kenny, senior trial counsel at DOJ. The case was brought by importer MKI Enterprise Group, doing business as Winbo USA, to challenge CBP's denial of its protest seeking Section 301 exclusions the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative granted for "side protective attachments" (see 2404220057) (MKI Enterprise Group v. United States, CIT # 22-00131).
The Commerce Department was wrong to deduct Section 301 duties from an exporter’s U.S. price as part of its antidumping duty calculation, that exporter said May 3 in defense of an earlier motion for judgment. It said Section 301 duties aren’t “normal import duties,” but rather remedial “special” duties that statute requires be included in export price calculations (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00068).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 6 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Importer van Gelder on May 3 moved to set aside the Court of International Trade's dismissal of its case for failure to prosecute, arguing that its counsel "overlooked -- by virtue of a calendaring mistake" -- the new deadline for the case after it was extended on the customs case management calendar (van Gelder v. U.S., CIT # 21-00160).
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Adrian Smith called out U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai for the lengthy wait for the Section 301 tariffs review, which officially started in July 2022 after a round of comments that year in May in favor of extending the action.
The subcommittee that covers intellectual property issues under the House Judiciary Committee questioned how Congress should address the escalating volume of de minimis packages -- and the opportunities those shipments provide for sending counterfeits and goods made with forced labor, but the CBP witness responsible for de minimis and IP declined to back any of the ideas that were bandied about.
Canadian Solar, which is ramping up a 5-gigawatt solar panel manufacturing factory in Texas, told the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that tariff rate quotas on solar cells under the current safeguard action and Section 301 tariffs on machinery that helps make solar panels and cells are harming solar manufacturers. Canadian Solar also is working on opening a solar cell plant in Indiana, but it won't open until late 2025. It imports cells made in Thailand. The TRQ only allows five gigawatts' worth of tariff-free cells in annually.