Background

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced May 2 that its Office of Trade Regulatory Audit has entered into a formal agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations that aims to further strengthen trade enforcement efforts.

According to a CBP press release, TRA will establish a permanent, full-time presence within HIS’s Tampa, Fla., field office, which “better positions trade enforcement resources and also enables more effective enforcement” of President Trump’s executive orders (including those imposing import tariffs) as well as his “focus on international trade, customs revenue, and economic security.” CBP states that this partnership will allow the two agencies to conduct complex investigations into antidumping and countervailing duty evasion, in-bond diversion, textile fraud, public health and safety concerns, and “other schemes designed to exploit and circumvent the customs laws of the United States through the illicit movement of goods into, or out of, the United States.”

CBP notes that this initiative is an enhancement to the longstanding Trade Enforcement Coordination Center framework to co-locate HSI and CBP subject matter experts and resources in aligned trade enforcement units. TECCs aim to streamline the enforcement of trade regulations, combat illegal trade practices, and support U.S. workers and industry, including by targeting the circumvention of “the U.S. revenue collection process.”

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