Expect new EU action at the World Trade Organization in 2024, four Akin attorneys said in a Jan. 23 blog poost. With the exceptions of 2023 and 2007, the EU has filed at least one complaint every year since 1995, and is expected to "go back on the offensive" by starting at least one or two WTO spats this year, the attorneys said.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Jan. 18-19 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):
DOJ and steel importer NLMK Pennsylvania are awaiting word from the U.S. "settlement authority" regarding NLMK's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion case after the parties agreed to a settlement in principle, they said Jan. 2. The Court of International Trade gave the government and NLMK another stay in the case, granting them 30 additional days to file another status report (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT # 21-00507).
Turkish duties on a host of U.S. products in retaliation for President Donald Trump's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs violate World Trade Organization commitments, a WTO dispute panel ruled Dec. 19. The panel said the duties violate articles I and II of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and also found that the Section 232 duties are not "safeguards."
The Court of International Trade extended the mediation period for a case brought by Evraz challenging the Commerce Department's denial of the importer's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests. In the Dec. 11 text-only order, the trade court gave the parties until June 30, 2024, to resolve litigation led by Judge Leo Gordon. Evraz called for mediation, along with other litigants, to discuss the availability of a remedy for already liquidated entries (Evraz Inc. v. United States, CIT # 20-03869).
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The Court of International Trade on Dec. 1 stayed for 60 days a case on the Commerce Department's refusal to grant Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions so the parties can conclude the voluntary remand process and "effectuate" Commerce's remand results. The agency changed course last year, granting the exclusions for importer Mirror Metals after finding that the relevant steel article could not be made at a sufficient level in the U.S. (see 2204190016) (Mirror Metals v. United States, CIT # 21-00144).
CBP failed to apply a Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion on G&H Diversified Manufacturing's steel tube entry, the importer argued in a Nov. 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade. G&H said CBP had said on at least three separate occasions that the classification of the imports was correct and that the classification was excluded from having to pay the national security duties as determined by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (G&H Diversified Manufacturing v. U.S., CIT # 22-00130).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "unequivocally held" that the Commerce Department could deduct Section 232 national security duties from U.S. price in antidumping duty cases, the U.S. argued in a Nov. 17 supplemental brief at the Court of International Trade.
The Commerce Department failed to address contradicting that the U.S. industry couldn't timely provide tin mill products when it denied Seneca Foods' requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 18 opinion.