CBP faces textile enforcement challenge

CBP faces textile enforcement challenge    Inspectors have witnessed a tremendous increase in the deliberate misdescription of cotton trousers and other products as ramie and other fibers in an effort by exporters to avoid temporary quotas, or safeguards, on certain textile products from China, according to Janet Labuda, director of textile enforcement and operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
   In addition to false declarations to skirt safeguards in 2005 designed to protect the domestic textile industry, some importers are misdeclaring commodities in an effort to lower duty rates, she said.
   The U.S. government is also losing money to importers who improperly claim their products should get preferential duty treatment under free trade agreements, Labuda told industry representatives gathered in Washington for CBP’s annual Trade Symposium.
   “We’ve determined the largest revenue exposure for CBP is in these textile claims of preference,” she said.
   Textiles represent 43 percent of all import duties collected by CBP. Last year $90 billion of textile products entered the country and importers sought duty-free preference for 24 percent of that volume.
   A limited investigation by CBP determined that 50 percent of those claims did not comply with import regulations, a “fairly staggering” number if extrapolated to the rest of the textile imports, Labuda said.
   She predicted U.S. producers would seek more safeguards unless the United States and China can negotiate a quota agreement through the end of 2008, when the World Trade Organization has ruled that all types of quotas are to cease.
   In the meantime, China is not helping enforce the safeguards because it does not recognize safeguards as legitimate quotas, even though they are permitted by WTO rules.