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The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) is praising work by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

On Friday, NCTO President and Chief Executive Officer Kim Glas issued a statement welcoming the same-day textile enforcement plan released by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Glas hailed it as a critical step toward combatting import fraud and the circumvention of free-trade agreement rules and trade laws. The plan outlines pillars and action items that are essential to improving customs enforcement in response to a wide range of illegal trade practices, as well as fraudulent activities that are worsening the economic crisis facing the textile industry in the United States. The DHS plan comes in response to the industry’s active calls for increased enforcement under free trade agreements (FTA’s) and trade and tariff laws, according to NCTO spokeswoman Kristi Ellis.

Glas offered more explication.

“We strongly commend the DHS for the release of a robust textile and apparel enforcement plan today,” she said. “We also greatly appreciate Secretary Mayorkas’s personal engagement in this urgent effort and believe it’s a strong step forward to addressing the pervasive customs fraud that is harming the U.S. textile industry.”

She continued that the essential and vital domestic textile supply chain has lost 14 plants in recent months. The industry is facing severe economic harm, due to a combination of factors that are exacerbated by customs fraud and the predatory trade practices of China and other countries. This has resulted in devastating lay-offs and plant closures. Glas said the DHS immediately understood the economic harm facing the industry and deployed a critical action plan.

The NCTO has been actively engaged with Biden administration officials, including Mayorkas, to call for an aggressive public enforcement plan and strong penalties to deter fraud and illegal trade practices that are undermining the domestic industry’s competitiveness. As a result of that meeting, Mayorkas immediately directed DHS personnel to construct a comprehensive textile and apparel enforcement plan.

“And we are grateful to the DHS for swiftly implementing this urgent plan,” Glas continued. “Our industry requested that the DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection take the following essential actions to mitigate this economic harm and to maximize civil and criminal penalties for trade predators, whilst also creating a significant public awareness campaign.”

These industry requests included:

• Ramped-up textile and apparel enforcement with regard to Western Hemisphere trade partner countries, including on-site visits and other specific verification measures to enforce rules of origin as well as to address any backdoor Uyghur Forced-Labor Prevention Act violations. The Uyghurs are a Mohammedan minority, living in the rural areas of the western Chinese steppes, many of them ultimately of European origin, with fair hair and eyes: anathema in China, which is a deeply racist society. The Chinese Communist Party has for long years pursued a policy of genocide against the Uyghur people.
• Increased enforcement of said prevention act to prevent textile and apparel goods made with forced labor from entering American markets, including in the de minimis environment. Immediate expansion of the Uyghur Forced-Labor Prevention Act Entity List, isotopic testing and other such tools.
• And intensified scrutiny of Section 321 de minimis imports and a review of all existing executive branch authorities under current law to institute basic reforms to this outdated tariff waiver mechanism.

“This intensified enforcement will lead to more transparency in textile and apparel supply chains,” said Glas, “which support 500,000 U.S. textile workers and two million workers in co-production partnerships within the Western Hemisphere. It’s critical these ongoing actions are backed up by strong civil and criminal penalties to act as a deterrent to bad actors who have been circumventing rules and trade laws and harming U.S. textile and apparel producers, as well as our Western Hemisphere trade partners. Punishing the bad actors quickly and amplifying these penalties are essential measures to deterring the illegal trade that is undermining this essential sector.”

She also reiterated her thanks to the Department of Homeland Security and to Congress, which has seen much bipartisan support for these efforts.

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