Turkish Steel Exporter Fights Deduction of Raised Section 232 Turkish Tariffs From US Price

If the Commerce Department is to deduct Section 232 national security tariffs from exporter Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi's U.S. price in an antidumping duty rate calculation, it should do it at the original 25% rate and not the increased 50% margin subsequently announced by President Donald Trump and later invalidated by the Court of International Trade, the plaintiff said in a Sept. 3 CIT brief at the Court of International Trade (Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00140).

Noksel is contesting the final results of Commerce's 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Turkey. The exporter challenges Commerce's decision to deduct its paid Section 232 duties from its U.S. price, arguing that the tariffs are remedial, temporary and would cause double-counting, and should thus not be excluded from the U.S. price.

Noksel argued that it is entitled to a full duty drawback adjustment to its U.S. price based on a Turkish drawback system and that the Section 232 tariffs should not be deducted from the export price. But, near the end of the brief, the plaintiff said that due to the court's decision in Transpacifc Steel LLC v. United States, which found that the tariff hike on the Turkish steel violated procedural time limits, any deduction made to U.S. price should be done at the 25% level.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed this decision (see 2107130059), prompting Transpacific and the other plaintiffs to file for a full court rehearing (see 2108250022). Noksel said that since the Turkish tariff tiff is an "unsettled legal question," CIT should still exclude the hike. "Given the outstanding question regarding the lawfulness of the additional tariffs, the difference between any tariffs collected pursuant to Proclamation 9772 and the 232 tariff that would otherwise apply should be excluded from Commerce’s calculations," the brief said. "Alternatively, the Court should stay this proceeding pending a final decision regarding the legality of the additional tariffs on imports from Turkey in Transpacific Steel."

Noksel also argued that the 25% to 50% increase should not be excluded because it is remedial, temporary and would constitute a double remedy. It's remedial since it is only applied to Turkish producers. It's temporary since it only applied for a nine-month period during 2018-19, and it constitutes double-counting due to a "clear interplay between the additional Section 232 tariffs on imports from Turkey and antidumping duties such that deducting those additional tariffs imposes a double remedy," Noksel argued.