CBP's Smith Says EAPA Expansion Part of 21st Century Customs Framework

A potential expansion of CBP authority under the Enforce and Protect Act that would apply to malfeasance beyond the evasion of antidumping or countervailing duties will be part of the agency's 21st Century Customs Framework discussion, CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner for International Trade Brenda Smith said during an Oct. 21 conference call with reporters. Smith last year mentioned the possibility of an expanded authority (see 1907240025). Currently, CBP uses the EAPA processes only to investigate AD/CV duty evasion.

CBP has “learned a lot” since the EAPA process was put in place in 2016 under an interim final rule (see 1608190014). There have been some “adjustments” made since then through “policy or our operational procedures,” she said. “We feel like a lot of the questions and the wish list of the trade community for EAPA has been addressed, but we know there are still one or two things that would make EAPA itself stronger but would also allow us to leverage what we have learned by using EAPA authority to other areas of potential evasion or fraud,” she said. “We have taken those ideas and wrapped them into our 21st Century Customs Framework effort.” CBP thinks there are still more opportunities and “have included our ideas in the 21st Century Customs Framework, which we will be looking to roll out in the next six to nine months.”

During fiscal year 2020, CBP through the EAPA program “prevented importers from evading” some $287 million in AD/CV duties owed, CBP said in a news release. That number is a 500% increase since EAPA began in FY17, the agency said. Most “evasion investigated through the EAPA program this year involved Chinese goods transshipped through Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, India, Malaysia, Laos, Taiwan, Turkey, Thailand, or Vietnam,” CBP said. “Some of the most common evasion schemes include illegally shipping goods through a third country or attempting to undervalue or misclassify goods upon entrance” into the U.S. CBP is currently using “EAPA to investigate 59 evasion schemes,” it said.