Importer Dismisses Customs Suit on Boronized Steel Tubing

Importer Maple Leaf Marketing filed a stipulation of dismissal in its customs suit on the classification of boronized steel tubing. Before the dismissal, the case served as a forum for the government to argue that it could assert counterclaims in customs cases. The U.S. moved to redesignate its counterclaim as a defense, which the Court of International Trade granted after finding that nowhere in Congress' scheme on the classification of goods does the legislative body explicitly let the government assert a counterclaim challenging CBP's classification (see 2306140053). The original counterclaim said that the steel tubes, originally classified by CBP as duty-free U.S. goods returned after repairs, are subject to Section 301 tariffs and correctly classified as unfinished steel tubes (Maple Leaf Marketing v. United States, CIT # 20-03839).