The United States Court of International Trade (CIT) issued Slip Opinion 25‑151 on December 12, 2025 in the case Kingtom Aluminio S.R.L. v. United States, denying a motion by the U.S. government and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to reconsider the court’s earlier decision vacating a forced‑labor finding against Kingtom. In December 2024 CBP issued a notice stating that aluminium extrusions produced by Kingtom Aluminio S.R.L., a Dominican Republic‑based aluminium extruder, were manufactured with convict, forced or indentured labour under section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This finding banned the company’s products from entry into U.S. ports unless importers proved they were not produced using forced labour. Kingtom challenged the determination, arguing that the public administrative record consisted mostly of a bare recitation of the statute and lacked any evidentiary basis.

In September 2025 the CIT held that CBP’s determination was arbitrary and capricious and remanded the finding back to CBP for further explanation or reconsideration. CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security filed a motion for reconsideration, claiming the court had mistaken fact and law. They argued that the court conflated an Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) on‑site verification with the subsequent forced‑labour investigation and failed to apply the Federal Circuit’s two‑pronged test for deciding whether to vacate an agency decision on remand. The defendants contended that the forced‑labour finding was based on evidence collected during a separate forced‑labour investigation rather than the EAPA verification.

Judge Timothy M. Reif rejected these arguments. He acknowledged that the previous opinion inadvertently referred to the “allegation assessment” but explained that the on‑site verification report cited in the opinion was still inadequate; thus, any misidentification was a harmless error that did not warrant reconsideration. The court reiterated that motions for reconsideration should not be granted for harmless errors and that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires courts to set aside agency actions that are arbitrary or capricious. Regarding the alleged legal mistake, the court noted that remand with vacatur is the default remedy under §706(2)(A) of the APA and that the government had not asked for remand without vacatur at the briefing stage. The Federal Circuit’s test in National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates does not obligate the court to reconsider vacatur when parties do not raise the issue.

The opinion emphasises that arguments raised for the first time in a motion for reconsideration are generally waived and cannot preserve issues for appeal. Concluding that the defendants failed to identify any clear factual or legal error in its earlier ruling, the court denied the motion for reconsideration and affirmed its earlier decision to vacate CBP’s forced‑labour finding. The case underscores the judiciary’s role in ensuring that forced‑labour determinations under the Tariff Act are supported by evidence and that agencies must provide a rational explanation linking facts to findings. It also highlights the importance of thorough administrative records when the U.S. government invokes section 307 to prohibit imports produced with convict or forced labour.