US Lawmakers Introduce Trade Enforcement Bill

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, New York

19 January 2009

Two senior United States Representatives have introduced legislation which they claim will promote an effective trade agenda by ensuring that US workers, farmers, and businesses get a fair shake in the global marketplace, and that US consumers have confidence that the products they buy are safe.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY), and Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander L. Levin (D-Mich.), introduced H.R. 496, the Trade Enforcement Act of 2009, last Thursday. The bill would actively open markets by eliminating foreign barriers to US goods and services exports, combat counterfeiting and piracy, restore rights under US trade remedy laws and strengthen the US ability to address unfair and illegal trade practices.

According to the lawmakers, the bill comes after years of lax enforcement under the Bush Administration.

“In order to reap the benefits of trade, and solidify the United States’ role as a participant in international affairs, it is vital that our trading partners play by the same rules,” said Rangel. “Our trading partners need to live up to their end of the agreements and open their markets to US exporters. This bill would help eliminate trade-distorting subsidies, and the dumping of products into our market. Simultaneously, the legislation will preserve intellectual property rights, and ensure that exports to the United States are safe. The Trade Enforcement Act will help to regain confidence in US trade policy.”

“The Trade Enforcement Act will help to expand markets for US exporters, shape the terms of competition, and ensure that trade violations are addressed,” added Levin. “It is only through an activist agenda that we can have the two-way trade that expands markets and shapes globalization.”

Rangel and Levin say that the past eight years have marked "a significant decline" in US trade enforcement practices. During the Clinton Administration, the US filed an average of eleven WTO cases each year to open foreign markets for US goods and services exports. Under the Bush Administration, the United States has filed an average of three WTO cases each year.

Rangel and Levin have been advocating a more active role in trade enforcement, and introduced nearly identical legislation in the last Congress. Committee Members have committed to work with the new administration and Congress to advance the issue.

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