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Stephen Brophy

Stephen brings more than 20 years of international trade experience to Husch Blackwell. His practice focuses on trade relief and regulation, representing clients in antidumping, countervailing duty and safeguard proceedings. He has assisted clients with these and other related matters before the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. International Trade Commission. Stephen is also experienced with customs issues, including tariff classification, valuation and country of origin marking matters.

On October 11, 2018, the Department of Commerce (Commerce) announced that it is initiating antidumping duty investigations on Refillable Stainless Steel Kegs from Germany, Mexico, and the People’s Republic of China and concurrently initiating a countervailing duty investigation on imports from China.

On September 27, 2018, Senators Marco Rubio (R) and Bill Nelson (D) introduced legislation that would give producers of seasonal fruits and vegetables standing to seek trade remedy relief. The proposed bill would amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to expand the criteria needed for petitioners to have standing to request the imposition of antidumping or countervailing duties.

On August 7, 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced the second list of products that will be subject to an additional 25 percent tariff when imported from China.   After a public hearing and comment period, USTR ultimately only removed 5 tariff lines from the list proposed in its notice of June

As previously reported, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a notice proposing an additional 10 percent tariff on approximately 6,000 8-digit tariff codes estimated to cover approximately $200 billion worth of imports from China. Our blog post can be found here and the list of products can be found here.

On

On Friday, July 6, 2018, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a process for obtaining product exclusions from the 25% tariffs imposed on certain products imported from China.  The tariffs went into effect on July 6, 2018.

USTR has set the following deadlines:

  • All product exclusion requests must be filed by October

On June 19, 2018, the Coalition for Fair Rack Imports filed a petition for the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of Steel Racks from the People’s Republic of China.

SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION

The merchandise covered by this investigation is steel racks and parts thereof, assembled or unassembled. Steel racks are racks made of steel of dimensions and configurations that can be adjusted as required, with or without locking tabs or slots, and with or without bolted, clamped, or welded connections, including any of the following: uprights, posts, columns, braces, frames, beams, arms, locking devices, and rails.