CBP Nominee Says He Wants to Delve Into Trade Issues
Even with the surge of migrants crossing the Mexican border, the nominee to lead CBP fielded plenty of questions on trade during his appearance in front of the Senate Finance Committee. Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told him, "This committee has a special interest in ensuring that CBP’s trade mission doesn’t get short shrift. Enforcing trade laws vigorously and working to stay a step ahead of trade cheats is key to protecting jobs, businesses and innovators in America, and CBP is right at the heart of that challenge. Too often in the past, including during the Trump administration, trade enforcement has been a secondary issue for CBP." He said his committee "is going to continue looking for ways to strengthen our trade enforcement even further."
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Wyden specifically identified stopping goods made with forced labor, and said that he and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, "are concerned about imports of mica, palm oil and cocoa which may also be produced with forced labor."
Ranking member Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, also brought up enforcement in his opening statement, saying that CBP works to identify "actors who try to smuggle goods made with forced labor into the United States or evade our antidumping or countervailing duties. Deliberate evasion of antidumping and countervailing duties not only undercuts revenue lawfully owed to the government, but prevents our workers and businesses from redressing unfair trade practices.
“Softwood lumber producers in my home state of Idaho rely on antidumping and countervailing measures to combat unfair trade -- and CBP’s work ensures that those measures are effective."
Wyden asked Chris Magnus, whose current job is leading the Tucson, Arizona, police department, what CBP can do to untangle supply chain delays.
"Although CBP is only one actor at the ports … it plays a very important role. I would want to make sure, if confirmed, that the agency has the appropriate staffing at the ports," he replied. Magnus also said that continuing to develop and modernize ACE is very important. He said work needs to be done to maintain and modernize ACE and get it into the cloud.
Crapo said he also would have asked about supply chain woes, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., asked about it in the context of agricultural exporters.
Magnus said anything CBP could do to expedite the movement of goods through the ports is critical, and his team will be working with port directors, with COAC, and with other business groups to identify fixes.
"I don’t think there are simple solutions," he said.
In his opening statement, Magnus noted his connection to immigration -- his father was an immigrant from Norway, and his husband is an immigrant from Hong Kong. He also said, "I pride myself on being a pragmatic and bipartisan problem solver. I care about innovative ideas and not ideology."
It wasn't just Democrats who asked about forced labor. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., asked Magnus if he would argue for seizing batteries containing cobalt mined in the Congo, when doing so could damage the administration's goal of moving away from fossil fuels.
"It’s pretty clear cobalt is being taken out of the Congo using forced labor," Cassidy said, and noted that he proposed an amendment that would have required that cobalt in batteries be certified as forced-labor free, but that all Democrats rejected the amendment.
Magnus said that addressing forced labor is one of his high priorities. "Certainly it would be something I would want to learn more about," he said, referring to the question of cobalt from the Congo.
Cassidy also brought up the Jones Act, which is not in CBP's power to repeal but in Congress'. Magnus replied that people may assume he's more interested in managing border crossings, but he said he has a strong interest in CBP's trade functions, and he wants to learn more about them. "The Jones Act is incredibly complex," he said.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said that his state's bridal industry is harmed by counterfeit goods sold online. Magnus said he's very excited to delve into the issues around e-commerce and counterfeits, and said it's not just a commercial threat, but a safety threat if unsafe products are sold.
"An important point," Chairman Wyden interjected.
Brown told Magnus that CBP needs to advocate for passage of the bipartisan antidumping law reform he sponsored (see 2104160037). He said that many goods made in China are sent to South Korea, and then are listed as being of South Korean origin when they arrive on our shores. He said that products used in electrical transmission are moved through Mexico and Canada, but made with Chinese electrical steel, thereby undercutting the Section 232 tariffs covering steel.
"There is no doubt that what happens in these cases as you’ve described, with transshipments, with the abuse of various trade agreements, with the whole antidumping countervailing duty situation," Magnus said. "It ranges from wire hangers to solar panels -- these are very real concerns, and I look forward to learning more about how the trade personnel within CBP are addressing these challenges so I can support them, so I can be an advocate for them, so I can work with the business community, both large and small."