Representatives David G. Valadao and Jimmy Panetta Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Support Domestic Producers

WASHINGTON – Today, Representatives David G. Valadao (CA-21) and Jimmy Panetta (CA-20) introduced the China Trade Cheating Restitution Act. This bipartisan legislation requires the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to distribute delinquency interest collected on antidumping duties between 2000 and 2014 to domestic producers of goods subject to these duties.

“The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has a legal responsibility to distribute all antidumping duties and interest to those facing unfair foreign competition, and it is unacceptable for the agency to withhold more than a decade’s worth of collected interest from these producers,” said Congressman Valadao. “I am happy to work across the aisle with Rep. Panetta to support our domestic industries and address this truly bipartisan issue. It is critical Congress works together to ensure these producers receive the payments they are due.”

“Since 2000, the federal government has collected dumping duties on Chinese garlic imports, but has failed to pay the required restitution to the impacted producers,” said Congressman Panetta. “The bipartisan legislation that I authored and introduced with my Californian colleague, David Valadao, will right this wrong by requiring CBP to pay all collected duties and their interest to those in agriculture that deserve it. By dumping garlic into our market, Chinese importers have long inflicted serious economic harm, especially, on our California producers. With this legislation, we are ensuring that the federal government lives up to its responsibilities not only to prevent dumping, but also to provide the proper remedy to our producers of American agriculture.”

Background

The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA) requires the CBP to distribute to U.S. producers all antidumping duties and accrued interest collected on dumped imports of their industry’s products that arrived prior to October 1, 2007.

In 2014, the CBP revealed that CDSOA distributions had not included several types of interest payments collected and was subsequently instructed by Congress to include these payments in distributions moving forward; however, producers in industries like garlic, honey, and others have not been compensated for the undisbursed interest payments collected prior to this instruction.

The bill can be found here.

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