Anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders impose duties on imports of foreign goods that are "unfairly priced" or subsidised, and that undercut US businesses, American Shipper reported.
"Trade remedy laws and duties are critical to ensuring that our trading partners play by the rules in order to help American businesses grow," said Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, ranking member of the Finance Committee. "By holding Customs and Border Protection accountable for combating anti-dumping and countervailing duty evasion, this bill will level the playing field for American workers and allow them to successfully compete in the 21st century global trading system."
"Customs evasion can take different forms, such as mislabelling products or submitting fraudulent documents, but its goal is always the same: to conceal an import`s true country of manufacturing to evade legitimate import duties," said committee chairman Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus. "These practices rob our government of hundreds of millions of dollars in duty revenue, and they deny US producers relief from unfair trade."
The ENFORCE Act, which the committee passed by voice vote, was originally sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, and Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine. It enhances the enforcement of anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders by requiring CBP to conduct timely investigations of alleged evasion and take action to apply the correct duties.
Between fiscal years 2007 and 2011, CBP assessed civil penalties totalling about US$208 million against importers evading anti-dumping and countervailing duties, according to a Government Accountability Office report published in May.