[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1681 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1681

Supporting effective enforcement of United States trade laws, including 
antidumping and countervailing duty orders and particularly with regard 
    to transshipment, in order to protect United States revenue and 
   consumers and remedy harm to impacted United States companies and 
                    industries and American workers.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 29, 2010

    Mr. Blunt (for himself, Mr. Bachus, Mrs. Emerson, Mr. Graves of 
   Missouri, Mr. Akin, and Mr. Luetkemeyer) submitted the following 
   resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Supporting effective enforcement of United States trade laws, including 
antidumping and countervailing duty orders and particularly with regard 
    to transshipment, in order to protect United States revenue and 
   consumers and remedy harm to impacted United States companies and 
                    industries and American workers.

Whereas United States companies and industries, and American workers, are the 
        most competitive and productive in the world;
Whereas unfairly traded imports can injure United States companies and 
        industries by reducing their ability to innovate, compete, and invest in 
        their operations and can injure American workers by suppressing wages 
        and contributing to unemployment and underemployment;
Whereas unfairly traded imports can cost American manufacturing jobs and may 
        undermine public support for economically beneficial trade policies;
Whereas the Department of Commerce and the United States International Trade 
        Commission can investigate unfairly traded imports and impose special 
        duties, called antidumping and countervailing duties, to remedy harm to 
        United States companies and industries injured by unfairly traded 
        imports;
Whereas U.S. Customs and Border Protection collects such special duties and 
        enforces our trade laws, including antidumping and countervailing duty 
        orders;
Whereas in recent years some foreign exporters and United States importers have 
        used numerous fraudulent schemes to deliberately evade lawfully owed 
        special duties imposed on unfairly traded imports;
Whereas such schemes include the use of falsified shipping documents, 
        misidentification of merchandise when it is imported into the United 
        States, and shipment of merchandise through third countries that are 
        then wrongly identified as the origin of the goods, a process commonly 
        known as transshipment;
Whereas evasion of lawfully owed duties on imported goods is illegal;
Whereas the United States Government Accountability Office has found that U.S. 
        Customs and Border Protection has been unable to collect hundreds of 
        millions of dollars of special duties and the noncollection of those 
        duties means that the United States Government has not fully remedied 
        the unfair trade practices and has lost out on a substantial amount of 
        revenue;
Whereas illegal evasion of lawfully owed duties prevents United States companies 
        and industries and American workers from fully recovering from injury 
        caused by unfairly traded imports;
Whereas illegal use of false shipping documents, false claims about the country 
        of origin, and false declarations at the time of importation can raise 
        important safety issues with imported consumer products;
Whereas pursuant to section 592 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1592), U.S. 
        Customs and Border Protection has the authority, power, and 
        responsibility to investigate and penalize violations of United States 
        customs and trade laws, including the requirement that importers 
        accurately identify goods that are subject to special duties imposed by 
        the Department of Commerce;
Whereas pursuant to section 781 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1677j), the 
        Department of Commerce has the authority, power, and responsibility to 
        investigate circumvention of its antidumping or countervailing duty 
        orders, and to order the imposition of special duties on products from 
        any country that circumvents such orders;
Whereas the Department of Commerce has the inherent authority to act to 
        safeguard the integrity of its administrative processes, including the 
        administration and enforcement of antidumping and countervailing duty 
        orders; and
Whereas it is only through aggressive and effective enforcement of United States 
        trade laws that such illegal activity can be stopped: Now, therefore, be 
        it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) recognizes the critical roles played by the Department 
        of Commerce and U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 
        administering and enforcing United States trade laws, including 
        antidumping and countervailing duty orders;
            (2) supports the aggressive and effective enforcement of 
        United States trade laws, including antidumping and 
        countervailing duty orders and particularly with regard to the 
        process commonly known as transshipment, in order to protect 
        United States revenue and consumers and remedy harm to impacted 
        United States companies and industries and American workers; 
        and
            (3) encourages international trading partners of the United 
        States to take prompt action to ensure that foreign companies 
        exporting to the United States respect and abide by all 
        requirements of United States trade laws, including antidumping 
        and countervailing duty orders.
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