CUSTOMS LITIGATION | 2026-10-25

After Chevron: How Loper Bright Changes the Way Courts Review Customs and Trade Decisions — and What It Means for California Importers

For forty years, courts deferred to an agency’s reasonable reading of an ambiguous statute under the Chevron doctrine. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron, holding that courts must exercise their own independent judgment on what a statute means. For importers who litigate classification, valuation, and trade-remedy disputes with CBP and Commerce, the playing field has shifted.

For four decades, one doctrine quietly tilted nearly every dispute between a business and a federal agency in the agency’s favor: Chevron deference . Under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984) 467 U.S. 837 , when a statute was ambiguous , courts were required to defer to t

The Supreme Court's decision to overrule Chevron is one of the most consequential administrative-law developments in a generation, and its effects reach directly into the world of international trade. Customs and trade law is unusually statute-heavy and agency-driven: CBP classifies and appraises goods under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and the valuation statute, and the Department of Commerce administers the antidumping and countervailing-duty laws through detailed, technical determinations. For decades, when importers challenged those determinations, Chevron deference frequently decided the case in the agency's favor. After Loper Bright, courts owe the agency's statutory interpretations no automatic deference. This article explains the shift and what it means for importers litigating in the Court of International Trade and beyond.

What Chevron Deference Was

Under Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984) 467 U.S. 837, judicial review of an agency's statutory interpretation proceeded in two steps. At step one, the court asked whether Congress had directly spoken to the precise question at issue; if the statute was clear, that was the end of the matter. At step two, if the statute was silent or ambiguous, the court deferred to the agency's interpretation so long as it was a permissible (reasonable) construction — even if the court would have read the statute differently. The practical effect was substantial: once a court found ambiguity, the agency almost always won, because its reading needed only to be reasonable, not correct. Chevron thus shifted interpretive power from courts to agencies whenever a statute was less than perfectly clear.

What Loper Bright Held

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) 603 U.S. 369, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron. The Court held that the Administrative Procedure Act — specifically 5 U.S.C. § 706, which directs that the reviewing court "shall decide all relevant questions of law" — requires courts to exercise their own independent judgment in determining whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority. Courts may not defer to an agency's interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous. The Court reasoned that interpreting statutes is the core judicial function, and that Chevron's command to defer was inconsistent with the APA's instruction that courts decide legal questions. Importantly, the Court did not hold that agency views are irrelevant — it preserved a role for Skidmore respect (discussed below) — but it ended the rule that ambiguity alone compels deference.

Skidmore Respect Survives

Loper Bright did not render agency expertise meaningless. The Court reaffirmed that, consistent with Skidmore v. Swift & Co. (1944) 323 U.S. 134, an agency's interpretation may still be entitled to "respect" to the extent it has the power to persuade. Under Skidmore, the weight a court gives an agency's view depends on factors such as the thoroughness of the agency's reasoning, the consistency of its position over time, the validity of its analysis, and the agency's relative expertise. The difference from Chevron is fundamental: Skidmore respect is earned through persuasive reasoning and must survive the court's independent analysis, whereas Chevron deference was owed automatically once a statute was found ambiguous. After Loper Bright, a well-reasoned, longstanding, consistent agency interpretation may still carry weight — but a strained or opportunistic one no longer wins just because the statute is unclear.

Why This Matters in Customs and Trade

Few areas of federal law are as agency-dependent as customs and trade. CBP interprets and applies the Harmonized Tariff Schedule in classification, the valuation statute (19 U.S.C. § 1401a) in appraisement, and the marking and entry rules throughout the import process. The Department of Commerce administers the antidumping and countervailing-duty statutes through highly technical methodological choices, and the International Trade Commission makes injury determinations. Historically, courts reviewing these determinations frequently invoked Chevron to uphold the agency's statutory reading. After Loper Bright, importers challenging a classification ruling, a valuation methodology, or a Commerce interpretation of the trade-remedy statutes can argue that the court must determine the best reading of the statute itself — not merely whether the agency's reading was reasonable. That is a meaningfully more favorable posture for a challenger with the better statutory argument.

Classification and Valuation Disputes

Consider a tariff-classification dispute. The question of which Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading covers a product is ultimately a question of statutory interpretation (the meaning of the tariff terms) applied to facts (what the product is). Courts have long treated the meaning of a tariff term as a legal question reviewed without deference, while giving some weight to CBP's rulings. Loper Bright reinforces that the legal question — what the tariff term means — is for the court to decide on its independent judgment, with CBP's position entitled only to Skidmore respect. The same is true in valuation: the statutory framework of transaction value, deductive value, and computed value under 19 U.S.C. § 1401a presents legal questions on which the agency's interpretation is no longer automatically controlling. Importers with a strong textual argument for a lower duty rate or a different valuation basis now litigate on more even footing.

Antidumping and Countervailing-Duty Litigation

The trade-remedy arena is more nuanced. Commerce's antidumping and countervailing-duty determinations involve both statutory interpretation (where Loper Bright applies and independent judgment governs) and factual and methodological judgments (which courts review under the deferential "substantial evidence" and arbitrary-and-capricious standards that Loper Bright did not disturb). This distinction is critical: Loper Bright changes how courts review Commerce's reading of the statute, but it does not change the deferential review of Commerce's factual findings or its discretionary methodological choices where the statute leaves genuine gaps to be filled by policy. Practitioners expect Loper Bright to have a real but bounded effect in trade-remedy cases: strongest where Commerce's position rests on a contestable reading of statutory text, weaker where the dispute is truly about facts or expert methodology.

The Role of the Court of International Trade

Most customs and trade disputes are litigated in the United States Court of International Trade (CIT), with appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. These specialized courts have deep expertise in trade statutes, and they applied Chevron in many of their decisions. After Loper Bright, the CIT and Federal Circuit must apply independent judgment to the statutory questions before them, giving agency interpretations only the persuasive weight they earn under Skidmore. For importers, this means that a carefully developed statutory argument — grounded in the text, structure, and history of the tariff or trade-remedy statute — can prevail even against a longstanding agency practice, provided the court is persuaded the agency's reading is not the best one. The quality of the legal argument matters more than ever.

Limits: What Loper Bright Did Not Change

It is just as important to understand what Loper Bright did not do. It did not eliminate deference to agency fact-finding, which remains governed by the substantial-evidence and arbitrary-and-capricious standards of APA review. It did not disturb interpretations where Congress has expressly delegated discretionary authority to the agency to fill a gap or define a term — there, the court's role is to ensure the agency stayed within the boundaries of the delegated discretion. It did not overturn prior cases that had relied on Chevron; the Court indicated that holdings resolved under Chevron are not automatically reopened by its decision, given principles of statutory stare decisis. And it did not change the many trade determinations that turn on facts rather than statutory meaning. Importers should calibrate their expectations accordingly: Loper Bright is a powerful tool for legal arguments, not a universal solvent for every adverse agency decision.

Practical Strategy for Importers After Loper Bright

For California importers, the post-Loper Bright landscape rewards statutory precision. When a classification, valuation, or trade-remedy determination rests on the agency's reading of statutory text, counsel should frame the dispute as a legal question and develop the best reading of the statute through text, structure, legislative history, and canons of construction — rather than merely arguing the agency's reading is unreasonable. Where the agency's position is inconsistent with its past practice or thinly reasoned, that weakness, which once might have been excused under Chevron, now undercuts any Skidmore respect. Conversely, importers should recognize that where a dispute is genuinely factual or committed to agency discretion, Loper Bright offers less leverage. The overarching lesson is that the strength of the statutory argument now more directly determines the outcome.

What Importers Should Do Now

Importers with pending or contemplated disputes should reassess them in light of the new standard. A classification or valuation position that seemed futile under Chevron because the agency's reading was "not unreasonable" may be worth pursuing if the importer has the better statutory argument. Companies should preserve their administrative record carefully — exhausting arguments at the protest and administrative stages so they are available on judicial review — and should document inconsistencies in the agency's positions. Because the line between legal questions (independent review) and factual or discretionary questions (deferential review) now determines how much leverage Loper Bright provides, framing the issue correctly from the outset is essential. Experienced trade counsel can identify which determinations are most vulnerable under the new standard. Counsel should also monitor how the Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit apply Loper Bright in the trade context, because the earliest post-Loper Bright decisions will shape how aggressively importers can press statutory arguments and how much persuasive weight courts give to longstanding CBP and Commerce practice.

Binding Rulings and Agency Guidance After Loper Bright

CBP issues a large volume of binding rulings and interpretive guidance on classification, valuation, and origin, and importers routinely rely on them to plan transactions. Loper Bright changes how a court treats those rulings when they are challenged, but it does not make them worthless. A ruling that reflects thorough, consistent, and well-reasoned analysis may still earn Skidmore respect and influence a court, and importers should continue to request and rely on binding rulings for the certainty they provide at the administrative level. What has changed is the posture on judicial review: an importer who disagrees with a ruling is no longer fighting an uphill battle against automatic deference, but can ask the court to adopt the best reading of the tariff or statutory term. The practical takeaway is that binding rulings remain valuable planning tools, but their persuasive force in litigation now depends on their quality rather than on a deference doctrine. Importers should scrutinize the reasoning behind an adverse ruling and be prepared to show where it departs from the statute's best meaning.

Interaction With the Protest and Exhaustion Process

Because Loper Bright rewards strong statutory arguments, the administrative record an importer builds before litigation matters more than ever. Classification and valuation disputes with CBP generally proceed through the protest procedure, and an importer must preserve its arguments there to raise them on judicial review in the Court of International Trade. An importer that develops a precise, text-based statutory argument at the protest stage — citing the tariff language, the General Rules of Interpretation, relevant Explanatory Notes, and the structure of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule — positions itself to argue on review that the court should independently adopt that reading. Conversely, an argument raised for the first time in court may be forfeited. The post-Loper Bright environment therefore places a premium on early, rigorous development of the legal theory: the importer who treats the protest as a serious statutory brief, rather than a formality, is the importer best positioned to benefit from independent judicial review. Documenting inconsistencies in CBP's prior positions also strengthens the case against any Skidmore respect for the agency's current view.

Related Guides

• California International Trade & Customs Lawyers
• Country-of-Origin Marking & the 10% Marking Duty
• Antidumping & Countervailing Duties: Separate Rate vs. All-Others Rate

Frequently Asked Questions

What did Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decide?

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) 603 U.S. 369, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron deference, holding that the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. § 706) requires courts to exercise their own independent judgment in deciding what a statute means. Courts may no longer defer to an agency's interpretation just because the statute is ambiguous.

What was Chevron deference?

Under Chevron U.S.A. v. NRDC (1984) 467 U.S. 837, if a statute was ambiguous, courts deferred to the agency's reasonable interpretation — even one the court would not have chosen. Once a court found ambiguity, the agency almost always won. Loper Bright ended that automatic deference.

Do agencies still get any weight for their interpretations?

Yes, but only persuasive weight. Under Skidmore v. Swift & Co. (1944) 323 U.S. 134, an agency's interpretation may be entitled to "respect" to the extent it is persuasive — based on the thoroughness of its reasoning, consistency, and the agency's expertise. Unlike Chevron, this respect is earned, not automatic. Call Trembach Law Firm at (213) 645-2246.

How does this affect customs classification and valuation disputes?

The meaning of a tariff term or valuation provision is a legal question the court now decides on its own independent judgment, with CBP's position entitled only to Skidmore respect. Importers with the better statutory reading litigate on more even footing than under Chevron.

Does Loper Bright help in antidumping and countervailing-duty cases?

Partly. It changes how courts review Commerce's reading of the statute (independent judgment), but it does not change deferential "substantial evidence" review of Commerce's factual findings or genuinely discretionary methodological choices. The effect is real but bounded, strongest where a determination rests on a contestable reading of statutory text.

What did Loper Bright not change?

It did not eliminate deference to agency fact-finding (substantial-evidence and arbitrary-and-capricious review), did not disturb cases where Congress expressly delegated discretion to the agency, and indicated that prior holdings decided under Chevron are not automatically reopened. Factual and discretionary determinations still receive deferential review.

Should I revisit a dispute I thought was hopeless under Chevron?

Possibly. A classification or valuation position that failed because the agency's reading was merely "not unreasonable" may be worth pursuing now if you have the better statutory argument. Preserve your administrative record and exhaust arguments at the protest stage. Call Trembach Law Firm at (213) 645-2246.

Where are customs and trade disputes litigated?

Most are heard in the U.S. Court of International Trade, with appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. These courts must now apply independent judgment to statutory questions, giving agency interpretations only the persuasive weight they earn under Skidmore.

Talk to a California Trade Lawyer About Challenging an Agency Decision

If CBP or the Department of Commerce has issued a determination that rests on a strained reading of the governing statute, Loper Bright has changed the odds: courts now decide the statute's meaning for themselves. Trembach Law Firm, led by Anatolii Trembach (LL.M.; admitted in California), represents importers in customs and trade litigation, building the statutory arguments that win under independent judicial review. Call (213) 645-2246 for a confidential consultation.

Contact Trembach Law Firm at (818) 514-7680 for a confidential consultation.

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