"Thank you, M. Speaker:
I rise today in support of my bill, the Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act.
This bill puts American industry, manufacturing, and workers first.
For decades, companies operating under the control of the Chinese Communist Party in the People’s Republic of China have systematically violated U.S. trade laws.
The CCP’s illicit trade practices, including duty evasion, transshipment, market flooding, forced labor, and fraud are deliberately designed to take advantage of American workers and businesses – lowering wages, forcing manufacturers to close their doors, and gutting rural manufacturing towns.
For example, the Select Committee on China uncovered trade fraud by Chinese auto manufacturer, Qingdao Sunsong.
Sunsong was using transshipment to evade U.S. tariffs, forcing an Illinois company to lay off a quarter of their workforce.
Sunsong is far from the only Chinese company taking action to exploit our trade system to bolster China’s non-market economy, crippling American industry and manufacturing, threatening workers’ wages and livelihoods, and enabling slave labor.
But despite the sheer volume of trade-related crime, the Department of Justice remains inadequately equipped to effectively detect, investigate, and prosecute such offenses.
While tariffs are one tool in our toolkit to level the playing field, we also must enforce our trade laws and hold China accountable for repeated violations that have a catastrophic impact on American workers and industry.
By strengthening the Trump’s DOJ’s ability to detect and prosecute international trade crimes, my bipartisan bill will ensure that Communist China and other perpetrators are criminally liable for illicit activity and that penalties are enforced.
This will help reshore domestic manufacturing and provide opportunities for American workers.
I am proud to have the support of China Select Committee Chairman Moolenaar and Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi on this bill and deeply appreciate their collaboration. I also want to thank Chairman Jim Jordan and Ranking Member Jerry Nadler for their support of this key bill.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and support American workers. Thank you, and I yield back."
Background:
Companies based in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) frequently commit crimes violating U.S. trade laws, including trade fraud, duty evasion, and transshipment, which benefit the PRC’s non-market economy and undermine U.S. companies and workers. Countless Americans have lost their jobs due to this criminal activity. Despite the large volume of trade crime-related cases, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has under-resourced its prosecution of these crimes.
Hinson's Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act has garnered robust support and now awaits action in the Senate. This legislation will: - Establish a new task force or similar structure within the DOJ’s Criminal Division to investigate and prosecute trade-related crimes.
- Enhance 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.
- Require the Attorney General to submit an annual report to Congress assessing the DOJ’s efforts, statistics on trade-related crimes, and fund utilization.
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