New proposals would help ensure a level playing field for U.S. companies U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced proposed measures – especially focused on illegal import practices from non-market economies - that will strengthen trade enforcement and help keep U.S companies competitive. These steps support President Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI), which aims to double exports in the next five years and support the creation of several million new jobs.
The National Export Initiative is focused on three key areas: a robust, administration-wide trade promotion strategy, improving access to credit and continuing the rigorous enforcement of U.S. trade laws.
As part of that effort, Locke directed Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) to survey the agency’s current trade remedy practices in order to determine how the Department could improve the effectiveness of its existing enforcement tools through administrative and regulatory changes. Based on this review, Commerce has developed a list of 14 proposals that will help strengthen the administration of the nation’s antidumping (AD)* and countervailing duty (CVD)* laws.
Under the Obama administration, ITA continues to step up its enforcement of U.S. trade laws. In 2009, ITA’s Import Administration initiated 34 antidumping and countervailing duty investigations compared to 19 the previous year, an increase of 79 percent. Cases against non-market economies comprise roughly one-third of the Import Administration’s caseload.
Among the proposed changes: In the coming months, Locke said the Commerce Department will conduct a transparent review of these proposals and seek public comment through a comprehensive stakeholder process. The process for introducing these proposed changes will begin this fall.
President Obama announced the NEI during his State of the Union earlier this year. It will provide more funding, more focus and more cabinet-level coordination to grow U.S. exports, and it represents the first time the United States will have a government-wide export-promotion strategy with focused attention from the president and his cabinet.
Since the President announced the NEI, the Department of Commerce’s Advocacy Center has assisted American companies competing for export opportunities, supporting $11.7 billion in exports and an estimated 70,000 jobs. To date, the Commerce Department has coordinated 19 trade missions with over 195 companies to 25 countries.
Exports remain an integral part of the U.S. economy. In 2008, American exports accounted for nearly 7 percent of our total employment and one in three manufacturing jobs. In the first four months of 2010, exports grew almost 17 percent compared to the same period last year.
* Antidumping duties are levied on foreign firms who, on the basis of a detailed investigation, are found to sell their products in the United States at prices that are below their home market price or their cost of production and cause injury to domestic industry. Countervailing duties are imposed after a similar investigation determines that imports into the United States have been unfairly subsidized by foreign governments and are injuring domestic producers.
More information on the NEI can be viewed at www.trade.gov/nei.
Below you’ll find descriptions of the 14 proposed measures:
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
