The Court of International Trade in a pair of July 13 opinions dismissed two lawsuits, one from importer PrimeSource Building Products and the other from Oman Fasteners and Huttig Building Products, challenging President Donald Trump's move to expand the Section 232 national security tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivatives." The order comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate after finding that the expansion, made beyond procedural time limits, was legal. Relying on its prior decision in Transpacific Steel v. U.S., the court said that a tariff move made outside these limits is permissible so long as it fits under the duties' original plan of action.

The Court of International Trade on July 12 upheld the Commerce Department's decision on voluntary remand to slash the antidumping duty rate for the separate rate respondents in the 2016-17 review on diamond sawblades from China from 82.05% to 41.03%. The case had been stayed pending the resolution of Bosun Tools v. U.S., in which Commerce originally used the 82.05% adverse facts available rate in an earlier review given that the mandatory respondents were uncooperative. The agency slashed the rate in that case as well, leading to an identical move in the present case led by exporter Danyang Weiwang Tools Manufacturing Co.

The Court of International Trade in a July 11 opinion remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. Judge Jane Restani upheld Commerce's tier-three benchmark calculation for natural gas, which included the import-specific 20% value-added tax and 5% import duty, along with the agency's decision to countervail phosphate rock mining licenses issued by the Russian government to exporters EuroChem and PhosAgro. Restani sent back Commerce's decision to use a "Profit Before Tax" figure to account for exported phosphate rock prices when calculating PhosAGro's profit ratio. The judge also remanded Commerce's reliance on PhosAgro's cost information and its explanation for why it found EuroChem's cost information supported.

The Court of International Trade in a July 7 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel goods from South Korea. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce failed to adequately explain why it deviated from its past finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's first through third debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable. The evidence cited by the agency in justifying deviating from this practice did not directly deal with these three restructurings and is thus "not a sufficient explanation to justify departing from its standard practice," the judge said. Choe-Groves also sent back Commerce's uncreditworthy benchmark rate since Commerce failed to address potentially contradictory evidence.

The Court of International Trade on July 7 remanded a case contesting an antidumping duty administrative review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The still-confidential order from Judge M. Miller Baker directs Commerce to reconsider its surrogate country selection process and to consider countries at a “comparable level of economic development” as potential surrogates on an equal basis with countries Commerce deems to be at “the same level of economic development” (Catfish Farmers of America v. U.S., CIT # 21-00380).

The Court of International Trade in a July 6 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's denial of exporter GreenFirst Forest Products' request for a successor-in-interest changed circumstances review for the purposes of countervailing duties on softwood lumber products from Canada. GreenFirst sought the review after it acquired Rayonier A.M. Canada's lumber mills, arguing it is entitled to RYAM's "non-selected" CVD rate rather than the 14.19% all-others rate. Judge Claire Kelly remanded Commerce's decision not to start the review for the second time, finding the agency did not address her question of why Commerce's successor-in-interest practice is reasonable for non-individually examined companies.

The Court of International Trade in a June 22 opinion made public June 30 upheld CBP's affirmative evasion finding related to imports of hardwood plywood from American Pacific Plywood, Global Forest and InterGlobal Forest. CBP said the companies skirted antidumping and countervailing duties on the plywood from China by transshipping their imports through Cambodia. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that the importers' due process claims relating to their lack of access to confidential information fell flat since they failed to claim that the public summaries of the information were insufficient. The judge added that CBP didn't misapply the substantial evidence standard in the investigation, contrary to the importers' claims. Baker said the companies conflated "evidence" with "concrete proof."

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's decision not to collapse exporter Prosperity Tieh Enterprise Co. with the already-collapsed entity of Yieh Phui Enterprise Co. and Synn Industrial Co. as part of the antidumping duty investigation into corrosion resistant steel (CORE) products from Taiwan. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the trade court's opinion upholding the collapsing decision, Judge Timothy Stanceu said Commerce properly weighed the evidence to find the evidence was insufficient to show a significant potential for manipulation between Prosperity and Yieh Phui. The decision was made despite members of the same family owning both companies. The result was a 11.04% margin for Prosperity and a de minimis 1.20% margin for the Yieh Phui/Synn entity.

The Court of International Trade on June 23 upheld Commerce's use of likely selling price instead of actual costs of production to calculate the cost of production of non-prime merchandise, after German exporter Dillinger failed to populate the record with actual COP data for the non-prime goods in an antidumping duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany. Judge Leo Gordon also sustained the use of partial adverse facts available on exporter Salzgitter due to its failure to report around 28,000 downstream sales. But the judge remanded the agency's rejection of Dillinger's proposed quality code for sour transport plate as part of the agency's model-match methodology because a previous court opinion rejected that methodology.

The Court of International Trade in a June 21 opinion rejected the U.S. motion to dismiss one count of a suit brought by Sea Shepherd New Zealand and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The plaintiffs challenged the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2020 findings that New Zealand's standards for its West Coast North Island inshore trawl and set net fisheries were comparable with U.S. regulations. The U.S. said that because the comparability findings expired, the claims were moot. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that while injunctive relief against the findings were moot, one element of Sea Shepherd's argument was live because it's capable of repetition and evading review.