Protecting American Industry and Labor From International Trade Crimes Act of 2024

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, the Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act. This bill puts American industry, American manufacturing, and American workers first.

For decades, companies operating under the control of the Chinese Communist Party in the People's Republic of China have systematically violated U.S. trade laws.

The CCP's illicit trade practices, including duty evasion, transshipment, market flooding, forced labor, and fraud, are deliberately designed to take advantage of American workers and businesses, lowering wages, forcing manufacturers to close their doors, and gutting our rural manufacturing towns.

For example, the select committee on China uncovered trade fraud by Chinese auto manufacturer Qingdao Sunsong. Sunsong was using transshipment to evade U.S. tariffs, forcing an Illinois company to lay off a quarter of their workforce.

Sunsong is far from the only Chinese company taking action to exploit our trade system to bolster China's nonmarket economy, crippling American industry and manufacturing, threatening workers' wages and livelihoods, and enabling slave labor.

However, despite the sheer volume of trade-related crime, the Department of Justice remains inadequately equipped to effectively detect, investigate, and then prosecute such offenses.

While tariffs are one tool in our toolkit to level that playing field, we also must enforce our trade laws and hold China accountable for repeated violations that have a catastrophic impact on American workers and American industry.

By strengthening the Trump DOJ's ability to detect and prosecute international trade crimes, my bipartisan bill will ensure that Communist China and other perpetrators are criminally liable for illicit activity and that those penalties are properly enforced. This will help to reshore domestic manufacturing and provide opportunities for our American workers.

I am also very proud to have the support of the China select committee chairman, Chairman Moolenaar, and Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi on this bill. I deeply appreciate their partnership and collaboration on this. I also thank Chairman Jordan and Ranking Member Nadler for their support of this key bill on the Judiciary Committee.

To close, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and support American workers in the process.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source