The domestic steel industry had asked President Bush for protection against steel products that were flooding the American market with lower-priced imports, while American firms faced rising production costs with a growing number of steel manufacturers facing bankruptcy.

Photo Credit: courtesy of U.S. Steel

U.S. Customs is the lead agency for implementing steel proclamation

The Presidential Proclamation took effect March 20, 2002, and made Customs the lead agency for implementing the new trade remedy. The Customs Service would design, administer, and enforce the steps, manner, and procedures under which 201 Steel, which imposed additional duties on certain steel imports of up to 30 percent, would take shape and function.

The Office of Strategic Trade (OST) and the Chicago Strategic Trade Center (STC) have been tracking steel imports since 1998. Customs was well on its way to a more effective analysis of importing trends, assuring greater accuracy in steel trade statistics, and providing analytical support in targeting shipments suspected of evading existing steel trade laws.

Concerned that steel importers would try to circumvent increased duties by making false claims about their shipments, and that ports be ready to handle the increased workload, Team Customs (OST, OFO, ORR, OI, and OIT) developed a multi-office strategy based on shared responsibilities that included:

• Good internal communication, with detailed instructions, guidance, and manuals to the ports; frequent intranet updates; training for port personnel and agents from the Office of Investigations; ongoing communication between Headquarters and field offices.
• Extensive external communication that stressed the message of "getting it right the first time." Target audiences here were importers and brokers, other government agencies involved in trade issues, and Congress - all of whom would get information from the Customs web site and external meetings and briefings.
• Risk-based targeting to verify importers - claims about their shipments and to assess penalties when warranted.

OR&R and its National Commodity Specialist Division called together a team of steel import specialists to formulate guidance for the ports.

OST pitched in with written instructions that tied Harmonized Tariff Code numbers to applicable trade actions (which could include 201, anti-dumping/countervailing duty cases, suspension agreements, and other tariff-rate issues).

Since virtually no operating arm of Customs was not involved with the 201 program, representatives from the Offices of Field Operations, Strategic Trade, and Investigations met in Chicago shortly after the March 20 deadline for training on how to deal with increased workloads and verification procedures. And Customs conducted fraud training seminars in May for special agents on the Southwest border, who would also be involved in Steel 201's enforcement.

"Customs has worked very hard across several disciplines to make Steel 201 work," says Deborah Spero, Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Strategic Trade. "So well, in fact, that by now the strategic process used for Steel 201 is well on its way to becoming the model for how Customs tackles priority trade issues."