Importers in the massive litigation over President Donald Trump's Section 301 action on China will appeal Court of International Trade rulings upholding the tariffs. Pratik Shah, counsel for lead plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products, said he believes the importers' arguments are strong.

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Two separate motions for summary judgment in a case involving allegedly defective plywood were shot down by Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves in a March 20 opinion. Choe-Groves found that Bral had not sufficiently made a case under the customs regulations that all its imported plywood was defective and should have been appraised at a lower value, but neither had DOJ proven otherwise.

Minority ownership by government-controlled entities does not change the presumption of government control, Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled in a March 20 opinion. The opinion upheld the Commerce Department's use of the China-wide rate for Pirelli Tyre on remand, with Choe-Groves holding that Pirelli failed to rebut the presumption in an antidumping duty administrative review of certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China.

The Commerce Department legally used a quarterly ratios methodology to set the quantity of subject mattresses sold by respondent Zinus Indonesia in an antidumping duty investigation, the Court of International Trade ruled on March 20. Ruling on seven specific challenges raised by Zinus Indonesia and AD petitioner Brooklyn Bedding, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves also upheld Commerce's decision to use surrogate financial information from Indian mattress maker Emirates Sleep Systems, calculation and application of a profit cap and adjustment to Zinus U.S.'s reported sales deductions.

The Court of International Trade on March 20 upheld the Commerce Department's withdrawal of a separate-rate questionnaire it had erroneously issued to exporter Jin Tiong Electrical Materials Manufacturer in an antidumping review, finding Commerce's rejection of the company's answers as untimely was proper because the agency had withdrawn the questionnaire before Jin Tiong submitted its response.

The Commerce Department properly refused to factor a company’s alleged losses related to the company's failure to convert certain expenses from U.S. dollars to Canadian dollars into the cost of manufacturing wind towers from Canada, the Court of International Trade said March 20. Antidumping duty respondent Marmen didn’t qualify for the adjustments because its exchange gains and losses were already accounted for in the antidumping duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Canada, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said in an opinion.

The International Trade Commission legally applied retroactive antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of small vertical shaft engines from China, the Court of International Trade said. In a March 16 opinion, Judge M. Miller Baker said the "court will not second-guess" the ITC's decision, which found that the retroactive duties were justified because of a surge in imports of the engines just before the antidumping and countervailing duties took effect.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative complied with Administrative Procedure Act requirements when it set lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs on China, the Court of International Trade held in a much-anticipated opinion on March 17. After USTR provided more explanation of its tariff decisions on remand, judges Mark Barnett, Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves held that the explanations were not made impermissibly post hoc and cleared APA requirements.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 15 rejected a textile company's expedited motion for a temporary injunction that would have required CBP to return its entries of imported coated fabric to unliquidated status or suspend the company's protests. Judge Evan Wallach said the company, Printing Textiles, doing business as Berger Textiles, "failed to persuade the court of the likelihood that jurisdiction under" Section 1581(a) would be manifestly inadequate, establishing jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), as claimed by Berger (Printing Textiles, dba Berger Textiles v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1576).