On July 13, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) released its opinion reversing the U.S. Court of International Trade’s (“CIT”) decision that President Trump had unlawfully doubled tariffs on imports of steel from Turkey under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (“Section 232”).  The CIT had initially found that such action was beyond the President’s authority as it was taken outside the timeframe set forth in Section…

Yesterday, the European Commission published the long-awaited “Fit for 55” Package designed to drive forward the EU’s objective to radically reduce dependence on fossil fuels. As European Commission President von der Leyen stated in the press conference, the “fossil fuel economy has reached its limits”. Consisting of over a dozen initiatives, including both new and revised proposals, it aims to ensure that the European Green Deal’s objective of reducing carbon emissions by at least 55%…

On June 24, 2021, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) pursuant to 19 USC 1307 against Xinjiang, China-based Hoshine Silicon Industry Co. Ltd. and its subsidiaries (Hoshine). The WRO instructs CPB personnel to detain shipments of silica-based products produced by Hoshine and its subsidiaries, including “materials and goods (such as polysilicon) derived from or produced using those silica-based products.” On the same day, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of…

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) maintains a comprehensive set of regulations restricting the importation of various pieces of artwork, antiquities, and cultural property. On June 16, 2021, CBP published in the Federal Register a final rule amending those regulations to reflect the imposition of new import restrictions on certain archeological material imported from Turkey. The final rule recognizes that the artwork and cultural antiquities from Turkey are in jeopardy of pillage. It adds Turkey…

Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently published a report analyzing the US-China trade deficit after the imposition of Section 301 tariffs on imports from China in 2018. They concluded that the trade deficit narrowed, but attributed a significant part of this narrowing to duty evasion on the part of Chinese exporters and/or their U.S. importers. Specifically, the authors concluded that U.S. importers artificially reduced the value of their imports from China…

The German Federal Parliament has adopted a new Act on Corporate Due Diligence Responsibilities in Supply Chains (‘the Supply Chain Act’) on Friday, June 11, 2021, due to enter into effect on January 21, 2023.  By virtue of the Supply Chain Act, companies with a significant presence in Germany, as further explained below, must ensure compliance with human rights and environmental concerns in their business operations and impose equivalent due diligence responsibilities on their suppliers,…

On May 27, 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) issued its affirmative final determination in the countervailing duty (CVD) investigation of Passenger Vehicle and Light Truck Tires (PVLT) from Vietnam, in which it concluded that the Vietnamese Dong (VND) was undervalued, and that this undervaluation constituted a countervailable subsidy under U.S. trade law. This is only the second CVD investigation in which currency undervaluation, as a form of countervailable subsidy, has been at issue…