The Coalition of American Chassis Manufacturers seeks the imposition of new antidumping and countervailing duties on certain chassis and subassemblies thereof from China, it said in a petition filed with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission July 29. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations, which could result in the imposition of permanent AD/CV duty orders and the assessment of AD and CV duties on importers.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories from July 27-31 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
A domestic manufacturer filed a petition on July 28 with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission requesting new antidumping duties on methionine from France, Japan and Spain. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD duty investigation on methionine. The investigation was requested by Novus International.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is requesting comments on whether exclusions to tariffs on Chinese imports on Section 301 List 1 should be extended beyond Oct. 2, it said in an Aug. 3 notice. Comments are due by Aug. 30, it said. The evaluation's focus will be on whether, despite the first imposition of these additional duties, the particular product remains available only from China. The companies are required to post a public rationale.
CBP will add the ability in ACE for importers to file entries with recently excluded goods in the fourth tranche of Section 301 tariffs on Aug. 6, it said in a CSMS message. The official Office of the U.S. Trade Representative notice for the exclusions was published July 23 (see 2007210026). The exclusions are in subheading 9903.88.53. The exclusions are available for any product that meets the description in the Annex to USTR’s notice, regardless of whether the importer filed an exclusion request. The product exclusions apply retroactively to Sept. 1, 2019, the date the tariffs on the fourth list took effect, and remain in effect until Sept. 1, 2020. The CSMS message also includes a summary of Section 301 duties that shows information on each tranche of tariffs and granted product exclusions.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Former U.S. trade representative Bob Zoellick laughed when a webinar moderator asked him how a pro-free-trade consensus can be re-established. Zoellick was on a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace webinar about the future of the global trading system with European Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan June 30. He said those who support free trade have always had a fight, because politics often align with protecting domestic producers from import competition.
The International Trade Commission recently issued several revisions to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to implement new and amended Section 301 exclusions and complete its July 1 implementation of USMCA. Most recently, in Revision 17, issued July 28, the ITC implemented a new round of exclusions from list 4 Section 301 tariffs under U.S. Note 20(fff) to subchapter III of Chapter 99, and new subheading 9903.88.53 (see 2007210026). The ITC also amended tariff numbers listed for some exclusions in U.S. Note 20(ddd).
As importers await CBP guidance on imports from Hong Kong, some think there still may be more to come from a recent executive order suspending Hong Kong’s special status under certain trade laws. While the order only mentioned country of origin marking on the import side, “I also suspect that the details will continue to emerge and that other restrictions may be applied,” Lawrence Friedman of Barnes Richardson said by email.
Correction: The Court of International Trade's denied protest jurisdiction isn’t relevant in Trebbianno's lawsuit seeking refunds of Section 301 tariffs because the exclusions were not a CBP decision (see 2007270051), said Chris Kane of Simon Gluck, who represents Trebbianno, in a post on LinkedIn.