Low-Carbon Steel Blanks Importer Seeks Summary Judgment in Classification Case

An importer sought summary judgment April 3, arguing that their goods were physically and chemically different than tapered roller bearings and shouldn't be covered by an antidumping duty order on tapered roller bearings from China. It accused the Commerce Department of enlarging the scope of the order (Precision Components v. U.S., CIT # 23-00218).

Importer Precision Components said that the plain language of the scope of the order unambiguously shows that its products, low-carbon steel blanks, aren’t covered because they are raw materials, not unfinished or finished parts. The order, on the other hand, specifically covers only “tapered roll bearings and parts thereof.”

Precision’s blanks are made of non-bearing grade steel and require intensive processing before they can be used to make tapered roll bearings, it said. Otherwise, they lack the adequate content of both carbon and manganese, it said.

“If a part does not have the appropriate mechanical properties, even if it ‘looks’ like a bearing part to the naked eye, it does not function as a bearing,” it said.

It also said that the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and past history both indicate that its blanks are only raw materials. Even if the blanks were made of bearing steel, the HTS describes them not as “parts of bearings” under heading 8428 but as articles that are “suitable for use in manufacture of ball or roller bearings” under heading 7304, Precision said.

And, for about 20 years, Precision said, it has declared these products as outside the scope of the roller bearings order upon importation, which was confirmed by CBP in “10 or more intensive reviews.”