Door Threshold Importers Urge CIT to Sustain Exclusion From AD/CVD Orders

Two importers asked the Court of International Trade to sustain remand results from the Commerce Department that found certain door thresholds qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. In a pair of briefs filed in two separate cases, Columbia Aluminum Products and Worldwide Door Components said Commerce correctly reversed course after CIT's remand (Worldwide Door Components v. United States, CIT #19-00012) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00013).

"Contrary to the Department’s logic, a product can have properties that permit it to eventually be incorporated as a subassembly of a larger product or system, and also be a piece of finished merchandise in its own right, fully and permanently assembled and completed at the time of entry, to be bought and sold as is, without further modification," Worldwide said in its brief.

Worldwide and Columbia contest scope rulings over their door thresholds made from aluminum extrusions and non-aluminum components. In these scope decisions, Commerce originally said that it was unnecessary to find out if the finished merchandise exclusion for the AD/CVD orders applied to the company's thresholds because door thresholds are mentioned as examples of in-scope merchandise. In the first opinion in both cases, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that this was a clear misreading of the scope language. The judge said that mentions of door thresholds in the scope as subject merchandise only refer to whole aluminum extrusions used as thresholds, and not assemblies containing extruded aluminum (see 2008270039).

In its first remand, Commerce then said that Worldwide's and Columbia's door thresholds are subassemblies since they are meant for installation within a door frame, and aren't finished goods eligible for the finished merchandise exclusion. In court, CIT said that Commerce must reconsider due to examples of finished merchandise that seem to apply to goods similar to the thresholds (see 2109150046). Under protest, Commerce flipped its scope decision and excluded the thresholds (see 2112140039).

Worldwide continued to criticize Commerce's original ruling in its comments. "The Department essentially rewrote the scope to ensure that the inclusionary language of the scope trumps the scope exclusion for finished merchandise, because the Department terminates its analysis upon finding that a product is a subassembly, rather than proceeding to consider whether the exclusionary language may also apply," the brief said. "This is contrary to black letter law in the arena of antidumping and countervailing duty order scope interpretation, which firmly establishes that exclusionary language is only included in a scope to remove products that would otherwise be facially covered by an order."