The Customs Bill also includes provisions targeting the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty orders, although each chamber’s version of the Customs Bill tackles the issue in a different way. While the Senate version sets deadlines for CBP to handle evasion complaints, the House version shifts the authority for investigating these complaints to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The two versions differ to an even greater degree as a result of each committee’s markup of the Customs Bill last week. While the HWMC approved only one amendment to the Customs Bill (relating to the maintenance and distribution of post-liquidation interest that CBP receives from payments collected under a customs bond), the SFC included several controversial additions, including an amendment that would place the administration of the miscellaneous tariff bill process at the International Trade Commission. The SFC also approved amendments that would establish an Interagency Trade Enforcement Center and a chief manufacturing negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The SFC also appended to the Customs Bill a controversial currency manipulation provision, which would permit the U.S. Department of Commerce to initiate an investigation into whether undervalued currency qualifies as a countervailable subsidy. Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has indicated that the inclusion of this provision – as well as the provision, on the MTB process, will complicate matters with the House, whose version of the Customs Bill does not include similar language.
At this time, there is no official word on when either the House or Senate chamber will send the Customs Bill to the floor for debate and consideration. Sources expect that the full Senate will consider a bill extending trade promotion authority (TPA) to the president during the first week of May. The committees marked up the TPA Bill at the same session that they marked up the Customs Bill (as well as a bill on trade adjustment assistance and trade preference programs), but it is unclear if Senate leadership will send all four of the trade bills to the floor for consideration at the same time. Similar to what Chairman Hatch said, Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Pat Tiberi (R-OH) noted last week that, because the Senate and House versions of the Customs Bill include key differences, the Customs Bill will have to go to conference. In addition, sources have noted that, because the president and the Republican leadership want to quickly pass the TPA bill, members in either chamber who want to highlight trade issues may end up offering amendments to the Customs Bill, since leadership and the president want to keep the TPA Bill clean and free of controversial additions. This strategy suggests that the Customs Bill will come to the Senate and/or House floors at approximately the same time as the TPA Bill, but the Customs Bill may have a dimmer chance of passing if more members add controversial amendments to it during the floor debate.