U.S. trade laws only matter when they are enforced

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued two significant findings of duty evasion involving Chinese products routed through Mexico and Thailand. In the Mexico case, XCMG North America faces likely combined antidumping and countervailing duties of 69.31% on affected entries dating back to July 2025. In Thailand, CBP found five importers had evaded duties on Chinese seamless steel pipe. Neither announcement disclosed the total dollar value of duties evaded or recovered.

But uncovering evasion is only the beginning. CBP can pursue duties administratively, while contested civil enforcement and criminal prosecution require Department of Justice involvement. Does DOJ have the capacity to recover unpaid duties through litigation, impose penalties that outweigh the profits from evasion, and prosecute responsible individuals where warranted? Without meaningful consequences, trade fraud remains profitable.

On October 7, DOJ sued Uni-Tile & Marble and its CEO for $67.9 million in unpaid customs duties and $222.5 million in civil fraud penalties. The government alleges that 503 shipments of Chinese building products were falsely declared through transshipment, undervaluation, misclassification and shell companies.

The suit follows criminal charges filed in December 2025 against three individuals and three companies involving an alleged scheme to evade import duties. The civil allegations have not been adjudicated; the criminal defendants are presumed innocent.

This is the kind of enforcement that can turn the tide on trade crime. These cases must be pursued aggressively, resolved expeditiously, publicized widely and replicated across industries. The message must be unmistakable: trade fraud is not a cost of doing business, and the consequences of violating the law must far outweigh the benefits.

For the second consecutive Congress, the bipartisan Trade Crimes Act (PAIL) passed the House by voice vote on August 31. The previous bill stalled in the Senate in 2024; the Senate has the opportunity to finish the job.

The legislation would give DOJ’s Trade Fraud Task Force and new Global Trade & Commerce Enforcement Section a statutory foundation, requiring dedicated prosecutorial capacity, specialized training, interagency coordination and annual reporting to Congress. Effective enforcement requires expertise and continuity, not initiatives dependent on individual officials or administrations.

EnforcementNOW congratulates Rep. Ashley Hinson and Select Committee leaders John Moolenaar and Raja Krishnamoorthi for their bipartisan leadership. The Senate should pass this legislation and make trade-crime enforcement an enduring federal responsibility, with consequences strong enough to deter.

On October 2, EnforcementNOW urged House leadership to continue the bipartisan Select Committee on China in the 120th Congress. Our supporters span approximately 140 congressional districts and multiple industries confronting trade crime firsthand.

The Committee recognized that individual violations reflected systemic enforcement failures, not isolated incidents. It challenged CBP, HSI and DOJ on why unlawful practices persisted despite credible evidence, questioned the accountability of major U.S. purchasers, and helped advance the bipartisan PAIL Act, which passed the House on August 31.

The Committee’s value extends beyond trade enforcement. Its work brings industry experience into congressional oversight of China’s economic, technological and national-security challenges. Preserving that capability is important to understanding and addressing the broader competition with China.

Effective September 18, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began enhanced verification of importer identities under Executive Order 14411, Strengthening Customs Enforcement. CBP can now immediately void importer-of-record numbers associated with inaccurate or incomplete information, preventing affected importers from clearing merchandise into the United States until their identities are verified and numbers restored.

Fraudulent and disposable importer identities have long enabled tariff evasion and undermined accountability. This measure addresses a critical enforcement weakness by making accurate identification a condition of market access. It is an important step toward closing the loopholes that allow trade violators to evade duties, abandon liabilities and reappear under new identities.

An August 13 White House report, The Great Transshipment Scam, compares five government and private-sector assessments of potential transshipment and related trade exposure. They range from $40 billion to $303 billion annually, using different definitions and methods. These are not directly comparable estimates of proven fraud.

Using a $75 billion central scenario, the report calculates $19 billion to $34 billion in potential annual tariff losses, depending on the assumed duty differential. It also proposes new tools to help CBP identify suspicious shipments.

The figures show how serious the problem may be. But identifying suspicious shipments is only the beginning. The government must investigate violations, collect unpaid duties and prosecute fraud when the evidence supports it.

Bloomberg reported that CBP conducted unannounced inspections of China-linked factories in Vietnam, examining raw materials, production records and manufacturing processes. Sources said the inspections had not yet produced significant evidence of illegal transshipment.

That finding warrants scrutiny. A Nikkei Asia investigation identified Chinese trading companies offering to reroute goods through Vietnam, change their declared origin and remove Chinese markings. These findings do not establish fraud at the factories CBP inspected, but they raise questions about the scope and effectiveness of those inspections.

Factory visits are useful, but fraud organized through trading companies, freight handlers and false documents may require a broader investigation. What did CBP examine, and what further work is planned?

On July 14, DOJ and DHS reported more than $1 billion in recoveries, penalties, forfeitures and charged losses since launching their Trade Fraud Task Force in August 2025. The figure combines different enforcement measures, including alleged losses. It does not establish that $1 billion was collected.

DOJ also created a Global Trade & Commerce Enforcement Section, announced a network of 35 participating U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and released a joint enforcement guide. Specialized prosecutors and nationwide coordination are important steps toward treating customs fraud as a serious economic crime.

The test is what follows: investigations, convictions, actual collections and individual accountability. DOJ should report money collected separately from penalties assessed and losses charged so the public can measure results.

EnforcementNOW partnered with American Moment to develop a trade crime study guide for current and future government staffers and policymakers. These are the people who help draft legislation, oversee federal agencies and advise elected officials. Without that understanding, Congress can pass legislation and fund enforcement without addressing the failures that allow trade crime to persist.

Drawing on real enforcement cases and firsthand industry experience, the guide explains transshipment, undervaluation, misclassification and smuggling. It examines weak import verification, divided agency responsibilities and delays in holding violators accountable.

Trade enforcement is a multigenerational challenge. Urgent action is essential, but lasting progress also depends on developing the knowledge and commitment to sustain effective enforcement across future administrations.

On June 3, President Trump signed an executive order directing broad reforms to customs enforcement: stronger importer and broker vetting, greater disclosure of supply chains and foreign export records, higher bond requirements and more audits. The order also directs CBP and DOJ to prioritize transshipment, undervaluation, misclassification and forced-labor violations.

It calls for tougher penalties, including a minimum 50% penalty floor absent specified exceptional circumstances, faster handling of seized goods and annual enforcement transparency reports. DHS must also recommend legislative reforms.

These measures address longstanding weaknesses that have disadvantaged lawful American businesses. Their value will depend on execution: whether violations are uncovered, those responsible face consequences, and unpaid duties and penalties are actually collected.

The House Appropriations Committee’s FY2027 report directs that no less than $20 million from DOJ’s general legal activities funding be allocated to the Trade Fraud Task Force in the Criminal Division. The work covers tariff evasion, illegal transshipment, forced-labor violations and related trade crimes.

This is a concrete congressional funding recommendation, not an enacted appropriation. The distinction matters: prosecutors need resources, but proposed funding alone cannot guarantee sustained enforcement.

The Trade Crimes Act (PAIL) would complement that commitment by establishing specialized prosecution, training, coordination and annual reporting in law. Funding and a lasting statutory mandate serve different purposes; both matter.

On May 13, DOJ announced a $549.5 million False Claims Act settlement with Perfectus Aluminum and affiliated companies. The case involved more than 2.2 million Chinese aluminum extrusions disguised as finished “pallets” to avoid antidumping and countervailing duties between 2011 and 2014.

A jury convicted the corporate defendants in 2021, yet the civil settlement was announced more than a decade after the imports. The settlement is a substantial enforcement result, achieved through work by whistleblowers and federal investigators.

The delay has consequences. Lawful competitors face years of distorted prices and lost business while a case proceeds. The challenge is to deliver comparable accountability much sooner, before unlawful advantages become entrenched.

Boise Cascade pleaded guilty on April 27 to a felony Lacey Act violation and was ordered to pay a $6.38 million fine for its role in buying and selling illegally imported Chinese plywood. DOJ said the company knew, or was willfully blind to, the plywood’s unlawful entry through a supplier that concealed its Chinese origin.

The importer’s principals had previously received 57-month prison sentences and orders to forfeit more than $42 million. Those are penalties ordered, not evidence that all amounts were collected.

The case reaches beyond the company that filed the import paperwork. U.S. purchasers cannot ignore credible signs of unlawful sourcing and assume the legal risk stops with their supplier.

Bloomberg reported on April 23 that supply-chain data from Altana identified roughly $300 billion a year in tariff-exposed goods reaching the United States through Southeast Asia and Mexico. Altana also found a 76% rise in activity on suspected transshipment routes during 2025.

The figures show how quickly trade flows can change after tariffs rise. But rerouted shipments are not automatically fraudulent. Some reflect lawful manufacturing or changes in sourcing; the critical question is whether the declared country of origin matches what actually happened to the goods.

This scale warrants more than statistical scrutiny. Investigators need to trace products to their manufacturing facilities and verify the claimed transformation before concluding that duties were evaded.

The Port Arthur Area Shrimpers’ Association (PAASA) has joined EnforcementNOW, bringing the experience of working Gulf Coast fishing families into the coalition. Their concerns include unfairly priced imports, uneven enforcement of seafood standards and the pressure these failures place on domestic producers.

PAASA has already demonstrated what focused advocacy can accomplish. Working with the Southern Shrimp Alliance, it challenged Peru’s certification to export wild-caught shrimp under U.S. sea-turtle protection rules. The State Department suspended that certification in 2025.

The shrimp industry illustrates why trade enforcement cannot stop at tariffs. Import standards must be applied and enforced consistently, or American businesses carry obligations competitors may avoid.

A New York Times investigation found that the average declared value of a 20-foot container from China fell nearly 40% between January 2025 and February 2026, while values from other countries remained comparatively stable. Import records and interviews raised concerns about undervaluation and false customs declarations.

Changes in product mix explain some variation, so the decline is not itself proof of fraud. But a fall of this magnitude as tariffs rise warrants serious investigation—particularly when importers are offered arrangements that obscure who declares the shipment and pays the duties.

For compliant manufacturers, the consequences are direct: competitors can quote prices that lawful duty payments cannot support. CBP needs to test the declared values, not merely record them.

On March 9, Senator Bill Cassidy introduced the Securing Accountability in Foreign Entries (SAFE) Act to require importers of record to maintain a verifiable U.S. presence and be reachable by customs enforcement. Under existing rules, foreign entities can declare imports without enough U.S. presence or assets to answer for unpaid duties.

The bill addresses a problem American businesses have faced for years: assessments have little value if the responsible importer cannot be found or compelled to pay. It also seeks workable treatment for legitimate trade partners.

EnforcementNOW supports the proposal alongside CPA, Flexport and customs-industry groups. Closing the collection and accountability gap would strengthen every trade remedy that depends on accurate customs declarations.

Bloomberg reported that China’s 2025 records showed $112 billion more goods exported to the United States than U.S. records showed imported from China. Its investigation examined phantom importers, suspiciously low declared values and offers to ship goods without paying expected tariffs.

Trade statistics differ for legitimate reasons, including valuation and timing. The $112 billion gap is therefore not a measured total of customs fraud. But the size and direction of the discrepancy, together with reported evasion schemes, present a serious enforcement question.

The government needs to determine how much of the gap reflects false declarations, pursue those responsible and report the duties recovered. Identifying discrepancies is not the same as proving or collecting a claim.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is central to complex customs-fraud cases, from developing evidence and executing search warrants to supporting DOJ prosecutions. Reuters reported broad transfers of federal investigators to immigration enforcement. In January, members of Congress called for an accounting of those reassignments and their effects on financial and other investigations.

The precise impact on HSI’s trade-fraud workload has not been publicly established. That uncertainty is itself important. Complex cases require continuity, specialist knowledge and years of investigative work; staffing interruptions can set them back.

Expanding DOJ’s prosecution capacity without adequate HSI investigators would leave a critical gap. Congress should seek clear staffing and casework data, and ensure trade-fraud investigations have the resources to proceed.

EnforcementNOW launched a public Trade Fraud Case Tracker bringing together significant U.S. customs-fraud investigations and outcomes, including DOJ prosecutions, False Claims Act settlements, CBP actions and trade-remedy evasion cases.

The tracker allows manufacturers, journalists and congressional staff to examine what was alleged, what authorities did, how cases progressed and what penalties or recoveries resulted. That history matters: isolated announcements can create an appearance of progress without showing whether enforcement produces meaningful consequences.

The objective is clearer public accountability. A consistent record helps identify recurring fraud methods, long delays and gaps between amounts assessed, penalties imposed and money actually collected.