The US Senate passed a trade bill on Thursday containing language from the long-awaited, steel industry-championed ENFORCE Act, and the bill awaits President Barack Obama's signature.
The Senate passed the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 (HR 644), which included provisions from the Enforcing Orders and Reducing Circumvention and Evasion (ENFORCE) Act. The American Iron and Steel Institute and the Steel Manufacturers Association said the reconciled bill contained what they wanted from the stronger, more enforceable Senate version of the bill.
"The ENFORCE Act would create new procedures at Customs and Border Protection to address the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty orders within set deadlines. If we do not strongly enforce our trade laws, the domestic steel industry will continue to suffer harm," AISI President Tom Gibson said in a statement.
One of the key elements of the bill will be setting timelines for the US government to investigate claims of duty evasion. The bill says that the administering authority will initiate an investigation within 30 days of receiving a petition, and it has 90 days to arrive at a preliminary determination. The authority has to make a final determination within 300 days after it initiated the investigation on whether merchandise that entered the US evaded the law.
SMA President Philip Bell also lauded the bill's passage for addressing "the growing and injurious practice engaged in by foreign competitors who seek to evade US antidumping and countervailing duties, oftentimes by transshipping products through a third country and/or misclassifying the true origin of imports."
The push to hold the government accountable for investigating claims of duty evasion began about eight years ago by a coalition of American Wire Producers Association members, Kimberly Korbel, executive director of the AWPA, said.
