Petitioners Support US in Wood Mouldings Case, Say No Need to Consider Products’ End Use

Petitioners supporting a Commerce Department scope ruling argued that products’ end uses are not usually immediately considered for classification decisions and that industry support is only considered by the department during an initial antidumping or countervailing duty investigation, not during scope rulings or reviews (Hardware Resources, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00150).

Wood board importer Hardware Resources claimed in a Jan. 26 motion for judgment that its edge-glued boards, intended for making cabinets, were not subject to AD/CVD on wood mouldings and millwork products from China (see 2401290043). It argued that its boards are “plainly” neither wood mouldings nor millwork products “for the same reason that cabinet parts, furniture parts, and lumber are not mouldings or millwork, i.e. they are physically distinct products created by different processes for different purposes.”

Even the domestic petitioner, Coalition of American Millwork Producers, emphasized that end use was an important qualification when they sought the AD/CVD orders, Hardware said.

But that didn’t matter, the petitioner said, because Hardware’s products meet the physical description of subject merchandise provided by the orders. The importer doesn’t contest this fact, it said; rather, it said, “Hardware asserts that its edge-glued boards are not finger-jointed or edge-glued moulding or millwork blanks based on its argument that its product is used in downstream cabinetmaking” without actually differentiating its boards from “moulding/millwork blanks.”

This means that the importer is making a classification argument based on end use, the coalition said. But end use isn’t considered in classification decisions unless specifically provided for in the scope language, it said, citing the government’s own opposition brief (see 2403280030). And no such provision exists here, it said.

“To do so could open a significant loophole in the scope of an AD/CVD order, with the agency having no means to verify post-importation use,” it said.

The petitioner also pushed back on a claim made by Hardware that if the orders’ scope was expanded to all wood boards, it would raise “serious concerns about the legality of Commerce’s and the [International Trade Commission’s] antidumping determinations, including whether Petitioner met the threshold of industry support necessary for Commerce to initiate the WMMP investigation.”

But there is no industry support issue here because Hardware’s products were already covered by the plain language of the scope, the coalition said.

“Scope language is not intended to list every single product that falls within the definition of subject merchandise,” it said.