House Passes Long-Delayed Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2004
While a great deal of attention this past weekend was paid to final passage by Congress of the legislation terminating the Foreign Sales Corporation program, the U.S. House of Representatives on October 8, 2004 passed the conference report on H.R. 1047, the long-delayed Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2004, which makes a number of significant changes to U.S. trade laws. However, the conference report must be passed by the Senate when it returns from the election recess on November 17, 2004 in order in order to be enacted into law.
Most of the 299 page bill comprises hundreds of tariff suspensions on imports of chemicals and other products that are not produced domestically and traded in small volumes. Significantly, however, the bill contains language repealing the antidumping provision of the Revenue Act of 1916, which was deemed to be illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2000. Language repealing the 1916 antidumping law was added to the conference report by the Conferees even though neither the House or Senate had passed such a provision in prior versions of the bill.
Although the antidumping law of 1916 law was never used until the 1990s, the European Union and Japan successfully argued that it allows U.S. private parties to seek damages from foreign prouducers for dumping that significantly exceed antidumping duties under current WTO rules. To date no plaintiff has ever collected damages under the 1916 antidumping law. However, in May 2004 a U.S. federal court upheld a jury verdict ordering a Japanese newspaper press manufacturer to pay its U.S. rival more than $30 million, triple the damages from dumping as calculated by the jury. That case is being appealed. The provision in the conference report to H.R. 1047 would repeal the 1916 antidumping law but would not overturn any case already decided or currently pending.
The Conference Report on the Miscellaneous Trade and Techical Corrections Act of 2004 also includes the following provisions:
--Grants permanent normal trade relations (NTR) to Armenia.
--Grants normal trade relations to Laos (Laos is one of only four countries and the only least-developed country to which the U.S. does not now extend NTR).
--Grants a large number of requests for reliquidation of entries for a number of products, ranging from subway cars to tomato sauce. The Conference Committee's joint explanatory statement noted the Conferees' "great concern" over the large number of requests for reliquidation of imported entries. While the Conferees accepted the proposed reliquidation requests, they noted that "in future legislation" Congress should "authorize reliquidation of import entries only when there is clear government error" . . . and that the "Conferees intend that the test for 'clear government error' for future reliquidations be strictly construed."
--Modifies provisions related to the making of drawback claims.
--Corrects a mistake in the Trade Act of 2002 that inadvertently raised duties on Andean handbags, luggage, flat goods, work gloves and leather wearing apparel under the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).
--Prohibits U.S. imports of archaeological, cultural and other rare items from Iraq to prevent illegal shipment of such antiquities.
--Requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to establish integrated border inspection areas along the U.S.-Canadian border so that U.S. customs officers could inspect vehicles before they entered the United States from Canada, and Canadian customs officials could inspect vehicles before they entered Canada from the United States.
The entire text of the conference report on H.R. 1047, as passed by the House on October 8th, can be found at the following link:
waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/hr1047/HR1047confreptlegtext.pdf.