US Defends Scope Ruling on Vertical Shaft Engines at Trade Court

The Commerce Department legally held that modified engines with a gearbox and vertical power take-off shaft are covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and 255cc from China, the U.S. said in a Sept. 19 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00011).

Exporter Zehjiang Amerisun claimed that Commerce committed a reversible error by finding the vertical shaft to be a power take-off shaft that is part of the engine. In its reply, the government said this is a "mere disagreement with Commerce's conclusion" that falls "well short of demonstrating" that the determination was unreasonable.

Zhejiang Amerisun said that instead it is the horizontal crankshaft that is the power take-off shaft for purposes of interpreting the scope, which says that the covered goods consist of spark-ignited, non-road, vertical shaft engines with spark ignition, single-cylinder, air cooled, internal combustion engines with vertical power take-off shafts. The exporter challenged the "reliability of sources demonstrating that the power take off shaft can also be a separate drive shaft," and claims that Commerce didn't explain how its sources came to that conclusion.

In response, the U.S. pointed to its evidence and said that the record shows that "certain power take off devices 'use a drive shaft and bolted joint to transmit power to a secondary implement or accessory,'" the brief said. As a result, it was "reasonable for Commerce to conclude that a power take off shaft can be a vertical drive shaft like the one at issue here when that vertical drive shaft is the means of transmitting power to the implements (the blades)."

Setting this aside, the evidence clearly shows that a "power take off shaft is a mechanism through which power is transmitted from the engine to an attached implement (the blades of a lawnmower)," the brief said. Since the vertical shaft transmits power from the engine to the blades, the agency appropriately said the engine is within the scope of the orders.