The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 6-12:
Section 301 (too broad)
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Dec. 9. The following headquarters rulings were modified recently, according to CBP:
How to manage China's market distortions is an ever-present question in the relationship between the U.S. and the EU and will need to be addressed eventually, the deputy director-general of BusinessEurope and the president of the China Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said during a Dec. 9 Chamber event. Luisa Santos, from BusinesEurope, said that she sees new ambitions in Europe to address the disruption caused by non-market economies, including an anti-coercion tool that was just announced. But, she said, there needs to be more work in coordinating with the U.S. and Japan on how to address subsidies, state-owned enterprises and forced technology transfer. "I think one of the most important things to agree on what we think is a distortive subsidy and then the best way to address it," she said.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., criticized business interests as more allied with Chinese interests than with American ones, and said that even as a Uyghur Forced Labor bill was expected to advance in the House, it wasn't much closer to becoming law.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 29 - Dec. 5:
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Nov. 29 - Dec. 3 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America asked the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to allow domestic companies to rebut exclusion applications that claim that there are no affordable alternatives to Chinese products. "Unlike the prior tariff exclusion rounds, the Biden Administration has chosen not to afford any opportunity for domestic producers to rebut unsubstantiated and false claims in importers’ requests," the Coalition wrote in a letter it made public on Dec. 6. It said that USTR needs to closely scrutinize the 2,024 exclusion requests.
John Butler, CEO of the World Shipping Council, said ocean carriers are getting mixed messages from the White House, which is encouraging carriers and ports to rev up their leverage on buyers and freight forwarders so that they pick up their cargo promptly, and from Congress. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on an Ocean Shipping Reform Act that would give the Federal Maritime Commission more authority to punish players for unreasonable demurrage charges -- the same fees used as leverage.
The leader of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on making it easier for domestic industry to win antidumping and countervailing duty cases and said that the de minimis statute needs to be altered, in a hearing designed to talk about how Chinese practices damage workers, businesses and the environment.
The Trump administration's tariffs caused "a lot of damage to American consumers and business" and "we are no better off" after the phase one deal with China, House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said during a Dec. 2 roundtable with reporters. While not arguing that the Section 301 tariffs should be rolled back, he did say there should be an effort to "take them one by one and make some adjustments." He said there could be some Section 301 tariffs that could be changed without it being "politically toxic."