Steel Products Prices North America
February 23, 2016
Building a Dam: The ENFORCE Act
Written by John Packard
There has been too little attention paid to the passage of the ENFORCE Act by the U.S. Congress a few weeks back. At least that is how trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz sees it. He warned those at our 2015 Steel Summit Conference that the domestic steel mills were trying to build a “dam” against steel imports. The ENFORCE Act could become an important piece to the construction of that dam. Importers and steel-using manufacturers face a genuine and increasing risk that steel imports will decline to the point where U.S. users are no longer globally competitive.
The ENFORCE Act allows domestic petitioners to force U.S. Customs and Border Protection to investigate allegations of importers and their suppliers. Previously, Customs was empowered to undertake investigations, but had the authority to set its own enforcement priorities. Now, if domestic petitioners want an investigation, they can get it. This forces Customs to investigate importers even if the investigation is not a priority for the agency.
