Manufacturers Praise ENFORCE Act as Critical to Fighting Evasion
The Senate-passed ENFORCE Act would help bolster the U.S. manufacturing industry by cracking down on illegal shipments to the U.S., said U.S. manufacturers in a recent letter to Senate Finance and House Ways and Means leadership. U.S. manufacturing is under “assault” by successful antidumping and countervailing duty duty evasion schemes, said the letter, signed by the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Iron and Steel Institute, the American Wire Producers Association and the Coalition to Enforce Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders.
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Senate lawmakers passed the ENFORCE Act as part of that chamber’s Customs Reauthorization legislation. House members opted to go with a different duty evasion bill, dubbed the PROTECT Act. Negotiations over the two provisions will be front and center during the looming legislative conference over Customs Reauthorization (see 1507070066).
CBP has repeatedly failed to complete reviews on the classification of entries subject to AD/CV duties, said the letter. “Reviews often go on for years with no resolution,” said the letter, dated June 29. “In many cases, U.S. manufacturers have collected and presented overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing to CBP and other agencies only to watch that information disappear into a black hole of government bureaucracy.” Duty evasion is a growing threat to U.S. industry, said the manufacturers.
The letter praised the ENFORCE Act for designating CBP as the primary agency with jurisdiction over evasion investigations. The PROTECT Act keeps the investigation process at the Commerce Department. “CBP is the only appropriate entity to engage in these activities, which it has already undertaken to a limited degree,” the letter said. “House proposals to move this border enforcement function to the Commerce Department ignore the CBP border enforcement role and would undermine the Commerce Department’s ability to conduct original investigations and administrative reviews.”
The strict deadlines in the ENFORCE Act and provisions for judicial review of CBP evasion determinations would make great strides in combatting evasion, the manufacturers said. “If judicial review is not provided with respect to ENFORCE Act determinations, domestic manufacturing industries would be denied any opportunity to ensure that CBP acted appropriately and in accordance with law,” said the letter. “Given importers’ existing rights to judicial review, failing to provide judicial review of CBP evasion determinations would provide importers of goods into the U.S. with greater legal rights than our own domestic manufacturers that have already been found to be injured by unfairly traded imports.”
Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the letter.