Source: Blog – Alliance for American Manufacturing

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Bipartisan group of House members say legislation is necessary to deal with an unending flood of Chinese trade violations.

A bipartisan group of members that sit on the House of Representative’s China select committee has introduced a bill to beef up the prosecution of trade-related crimes.

The Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act – cosponsored by Reps. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) – would “establish a new task force within the Department of Justice  (DOJ) to investigate and prosecute trade-related crimes committed by companies and other entities,” writes the South China Morning Post.

“I do think tariffs are a powerful tool in the arsenal, but I also believe they should be backed by strong enforcement of our trade laws, and that will stop China from ripping us off,” said Rep. Hinson at a Capitol Hill press conference announcing the introduction of the legislation. “My bill will support the Trump administration’s efforts to stop these blatant violations and will ensure that penalties are meaningfully enforced.”

Foreign companies – and particularly those from China, which had a $295 billion goods trade surplus with the United States last year – routinely commit fraud in an effort to evade American tariffs and import duties. The bill would greatly enhance DOJ’s ability to prosecute them, from instances of tariff evasion to violations of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. And, in a deeply polarized political environment, the trade crimes bill – like a lot of the work done by the China select committee – stands out as remarkably bipartisan.  

“The CCP is flooding our markets with illegally subsidies and transshipped goods, and the dumping is absolutely killing us,” said Rep. Krishnamoorthi, the select committee’s ranking Democratic member. “It’s deliberate, and meant to kill off the competition. We all know this is not fair, but it’s not enough to cry foul; you have to do something about it. And that’s why we want to give DOJ tools to do something about it.”

Here’s how the bill gives DOJ those tools:

It establishes a new task force or similar structure within the DOJ’s Criminal Division to investigate and prosecute trade-related crimes;

Enhances nationwide responses to trade-related offenses by providing training and technical assistance to other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, expanding investigations and prosecutions, and allowing for parallel criminal and civil enforcement actions; and

Requires the Attorney General to submit an annual report to Congress assessing the DOJ’s efforts, statistics on trade-related crimes, and fund utilization.

The lawmakers were joined by a slate of executives from American companies that have been injured by unfair Chinese imports, who argued that they’ve lost considerable business and market share to competition that doggedly exploits trade rules. From a Reuters writeup:

Milton Magnus, CEO of M&B Metal Products Company, Inc, which produces wire garment hangers for the dry cleaning and textile industries, said his 82-year-old family business had been fighting illegal trade practices by China for 22 years.

Magnus told the lawmakers, including Republican Representative Ashley Hinson and the Democratic ranking member of the House of Representatives’ select committee on China, Raja Krishnamoorthi, that his company won an anti-dumping case against China in 2008 but it provided little relief.

“Before the ink was dry on the order, China was already evading the order by transshipping through other countries, hopping from country to country, changing the names, shifting shipments, just to stay ahead of us,” Magnus said.

This bill, Krishnamoorthi noted, came very close to passing in the last Congress, and its cosponsors are confident it will forward on its second attempt. The Alliance for American Manufacturing supported it then, and we’re supporting it now. Watch the press conference here:

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