Next steps for the Trump trade agenda

A hallmark of each of President Trump’s terms in office has been his focus on trade issues. He has sought to use the power of the presidency to address perceived imbalances in the benefits of trade with foreign partners, and to put in place policies — led by tariffs — to encourage businesses to reshore and invest in manufacturing in the United States.

During my tenure in Congress, I shared many of the president’s grievances with American trade policy and I maintain those views now. We as a country have been too willing to sit back and accept a shift of production to countries that have lower labor, environmental and other standards, allowing multi-national companies to make increased profits on goods that they sell back to us as imports. Consequently, manufacturing jobs have fallen drastically, industrial investment in the U.S. has dropped, and the communities that rely on these mainstays have experienced economic decline. America lost roughly 5 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2020. I am hopeful that by applying tariffs smartly, President Trump can set in motion a fundamental change in this trend and reinvigorate production and manufacturing in the U.S.

But there is another trade policy area where the Trump administration should focus its energy and pursue reforms to offer relief to American manufacturers. While tariffs are often applied broadly against all imports from specific countries or on a class of imported products, antidumping laws and duties are narrowly applied to address violations of American trade law by specific foreign countries.

When foreign entities are found to be selling their goods in the U.S. at below market value with the intent of undercutting American companies, these duties are applied against those imports to penalize unfair trade practices and even the playing field for domestic producers. Such relief is critical, especially for small and medium-sized manufacturers.

However, even when a petition for relief is successful, foreign companies can find ways to evade the application of the duties. For example, after one American small business prevailed in its anti-dumping claims against European producers, the same products were found being shipped through third-country routes under new product names, seeking to evade Customs and duty payments. As this cheating continues, American businesses lose customers and markets to the under-valued foreign products causing harm which can be long-lasting.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the number of anti-dumping (and countervailing duty) cases enforced by the agency increased from 540 in 2020 to 716 in 2024, a 33 percent increase, indicating that these foreign threats continue to grow. Perhaps not surprisingly, China is the biggest violator of U.S. anti-dumping orders, comprising 26 percent of adjudicated cases since 2020. But plenty of developed countries make the list too, with South Korea, India, Japan, and even Italy making the top ten. Despite the breadth of these violations, CBP only collected $2 billion in duty deposits and levied $80 million in penalties for violations in FY24.

The process for filing an anti-dumping claim can be expensive and time consuming. Specialized legal support is often required to help small businesses investigate and file claims, and the adjudication process can take months if not years. Approved anti-dumping claims are then subject to annual reviews, adding to costs and delays in applying duties. Efforts by American businesses to prove violations of dumping laws and evasion of duties require “non-public” information which is difficult and expensive to obtain.

Moving forward, CBP should utilize some of the significant new funding it recently received to better enforce anti-dumping laws and deter and penalize those who seek to evade these laws. The Commerce Department should update its procedures and modernize the process to make it more efficient and effective. Congress should consider changes in law to prevent any U.S. government entity or federal contractor from buying or utilizing imports that are subject to anti-dumping laws. Commerce should establish an ombudsman office to help small and medium-sized American businesses understand and file anti-dumping cases as a means of relief from the legal costs that may otherwise impede them from pursuing these cases.

The agency should also consider expedited procedures for filings and annual reviews, especially for smaller-sized petitioners. Finally, the United States should encourage the World Trade Organization to revise its rules on anti-dumping which have not been updated since the 1990s and are well overdue for reform.

It is essential that we reinvigorate American manufacturing by enforcing fair competition and President Trump’s trade policies have the potential to do that. A key component of those policies, however, must be strengthening the protections that we have in place to punish foreign entities who cheat our trade laws, which will allow American companies and their workers to thrive.

Dan Lipinski served as a member of Congress from 2005-2021.