Edge-Glued Boards Not 'Moulding' or 'Millwork' Importer Argues at Trade Court

The Commerce Department erred when it found that wood boards used to produce downstream cabinet products were wood “moulding and millwork” products, importer Hardware Resources said in an Aug. 31 complaint to the Court of International Trade. The suit contests Commerce's Aug. 2 final scope ruling which found that imported edge-glued boards were within the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on wood mouldings and millwork products from China (see 2308080002) (Hardware Resources v. U.S., CIT # 23-00150).

The importer alleged that Commerce unreasonably concluded that the wood boards used to produce downstream cabinet products were “continuously shaped,” thus making them within the scope of the AD and CVD orders.

Commerce found that the edge-glued boards were covered because they “match the physical characteristics of merchandise subject to the Orders, as they are made of wood, finger jointed, and edge glued.” Additionally, the boards were found to be covered because “they are made of wood, continuously shaped wood, fingerjointed, and edge-glued mouldings or millwork blanks (whether or not resawn)” and there was no limitation on end-use of the products in the scope.

Commerce also considered a 1 mm marking used by a downstream producer to indicate post-import groove cuts to be a "groove," meaning that the boards were "continuously shaped," Hardware Resources said. The determination that the mark constitutes a groove "has no reasonable basis in the plain language of the scope," Hardware Resources said.

The department also "unreasonably disregarded" and failed to follow its prior scope ruling issued to Loveday Lumber. In that ruling, Commerce found that the products were not considered mouldings or millwork blanks because they were "not intended to be later manufactured into a moulding or piece of millwork." Commerce also found that Loveday's products were not "finger jointed or edge-glued" or continuously shaped because they are “produced using a straight saw, rather than a moulder or radial saw” (see 2205230032). Hardware Resources argued that their products are likewise produced using a straight saw and are not intended to be later manufactured into a moulding or piece of millwork.

Finally, Hardware Resources contends that Commerce's finding unlawfully failed to examine the (k)(2) factors and based its conclusion on "dispositive" (k)(1) analysis. Those (k)(2) sources would have shown that the edge-glued boards did not share the same physical characteristics as in-scope items because they were scored with a straight saw and did not have decorative profiles.

The end-users of in-scope merchandise would expect to use the products "primarily in residential and nonresidential construction to adorn walls and other structural parts of a building," Hardware Resources said. Their boards are not used in exterior and interior applications and are instead further processed into cabinet parts, the importer said. Their products are not sold via the same channels and are advertised and displayed differently than in-scope merchandise, it said.