Wyden Statement at Finance Committee Hearing on Trade Enforcement
As Prepared for Delivery
Across the world, trade cheats are looking for any way they can to break our trade laws and rip off American jobs. Customs and Border Protection is often our number-one defense against them. It is tasked with spotting the illegally dumped steel and solar technology, the counterfeit chainsaws and computer chips, before jobs are lost or economic damage is done.
Earlier this year, the Finance Committee spearheaded the first big package of customs legislation in decades as part of the Trade Enforcement Act. Back when the last overhaul was passed, our customs agency was fighting a very different foe. It was much more difficult for foreign companies to evade duties by concealing their identities. Now the internet makes it easier to move quickly and stay hidden in the shadows. Blocking counterfeit products from creeping into our market used to mean stopping the right shipping container. Now counterfeit products are often tougher to trace; they can be spread out in individual boxes shipped straight to the doorsteps of American homes. Since the last customs overhaul, China turned its unfair trade practices into overdrive. And in many cases, the old schemes to get past our trade laws and rip off American jobs have taken on a new spin.
So in the wake of the Trade Enforcement Act becoming law, this committee has an important role to play in ensuring that CBP is meeting the mark on its trade mission. That mission remains as critical as ever, even with CBP now under the Department of Homeland Security. It’s all about focusing like a laser on enforcing our trade laws, protecting American workers, and defending our economy.
The early signals are, this focus is producing real results. For example, our new legislation closed an egregious, old loophole in U.S. trade laws that allowed for certain products made by slave or child labor to be imported to this country. What the loophole said – that economics trumped human rights – is wrong and un-American. I was very glad to see that CBP has already taken action to stop to imports of soda ash and several other industrial products from two Chinese companies alleged to be using forced labor.
CBP has a lot of other tools to fight against the trade cheats, and our new customs legislation added even more to the kit. I’ll be especially interested today in hearing about CBPs plans to implement the ENFORCE Act, which gives CBP six months to put in place procedures to ensure that American workers and firms aren’t injured by foreign products that are evading our laws.
Another of CBP’s most important roles is fighting unfair competition and job loss by cracking down on duty evasion and bringing in revenue for taxpayers. CBP is also responsible for keeping illegally harvested timber out of our market and for protecting consumers from unsafe products. It is absolutely vital in the fight against trade cheats that all of those enforcement tools are fully implemented, including those that were created and strengthened in the Trade Enforcement Act. I look forward to discussing today how CBP will do its part to implement those policies as quickly and as effectively as possible.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing. And thank you, Commissioner Kerlikowske, for being here today.
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