The Department of Justice motion for case management procedures to navigate the thousands of Section 301 tariff complaints before the Court of International Trade (see 2009240026) was “procedurally defective” because it wasn’t served on any other plaintiffs who filed cases involving the original HMTX Industries lawsuit, said an opposition Sept. 28 from Paulsen Vandevert, lawyer for importers GHSP and Brose North America. The more than 3,400 complaints seek to have the lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings vacated and the paid duties refunded. GHSP, a supplier of electromechanical systems to the automotive industry, and Brose, a distributor of mechatronic parts for motorized car seats, are in “full agreement” with DOJ that the many complaints will require case management procedures, Vandevert said. But his clients “strongly object” to designating the three “first-filed” complaints as test cases, he said.
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
July laptop and tablet unit imports to the U.S. continued their torrid growth from a year earlier, though July growth was flat sequentially from June, according to Census Bureau data accessed Sept. 6 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. Shortages of laptop liquid crystal display (LCD) panels and central processing units (CPUs) threaten to impede sales as the supply chain buckles under the weight of sustained consumer demand for notebook PCs as “essential” work-from-home and remote-learning connectivity tools, market leaders Hewlett-Packard and Dell said during earnings calls in August.
Remote-learning and work-from-home mandates combined with China’s supply chain recovery to send second-quarter PC monitor imports soaring, according to Census Bureau data accessed Aug. 23 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. Shipments to the U.S. took a sharp turn toward commoditization in the quarter, clear evidence of the broad-based consumer demand for desktop displays for pairing with PCs, laptops and other connectivity tools.
Second quarter smartphone imports to the U.S. increased by double digits sequentially from Q1, clear evidence of the Chinese supply chain’s recovery to pre-COVID-19 levels after the pandemic brought factories to a halt for most of February and into March. But the quarter-to-quarter increase masked subdued smartphone demand attributable to the pandemic’s decline in consumer spending.
High demand for telework and remote-learning connectivity tools sent Q2 laptop and tablet imports soaring by triple digits from Q1, according to new Census Bureau data accessed Aug. 9 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. Lockdown-induced TV import growth also was robust in the quarter, but intense commoditization was the story there, even in the largest screen sizes.
May PC monitor imports soared from April at a rate nearly four times that of laptops and tablets, the connectivity tools most commonly associated with COVID-19 stay-at-home mandates, according to Census Bureau figures accessed July 26 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb. May brought the highest monthly unit imports of monitors in 10 months.
The $38 million in Section 301 tariff costs iRobot incurred in 2019 inflicted a hit of three percentage points on its gross margin for the year, CEO Colin Angle said. IRobot assumes the List 3 tariff exclusion it landed in April on the robotic vacuum cleaners it sources from China will expire at the end of 2020, he said. The reinstatement of 25% tariffs on Chinese goods will result in a “similar contraction” to 2021 gross margin, he said. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “made it quite explicit” in congressional testimony last month that any granted List 3 exemptions “would expire at the end of the year,” Angle said. Lighthizer’s testimony “is the most explicit guidance that we have been given,” he said July 22 following quarterly results.
COVID-19's stay-at-home mandates didn’t quite have the same invigorating effect on May smartphone imports to the U.S. as on connectivity tools like laptops and tablets, according to Census Bureau data accessed July 11 through the International Trade Commission's DataWeb tool. Lockdowns sent May laptop and tablet imports soaring by double digits compared with April and May 2019 (see 2007100031).
COVID-19 lockdowns sparked a surge in laptop and tablet imports to the U.S. in May, according to Census Bureau data accessed July 10 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. The mainstreaming of laptops and tablets was evident in their increasing commoditization as the pandemic progressed.
SVS Sound CEO Gary Yacoubian says his company was able to navigate COVID-19 supply-chain disruptions in China because “we built a lot of product in Q4 last year that was intended to be built in Q1 of this year.” SVS negotiated that with its Chinese factories, partly to mitigate the Section 301 List 4A tariffs, he said.