Safeguarding Economic Security through Innovation in Trade Remedies and Environmental Enforcement

Eric Choy, Executive Director for Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Office of Trade U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Eric Choy, Executive Director for Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Office of Trade U.S. Customs and Border Protection

U.S. Customs and Border Protection plays an indispensable role in ensuring our nation’s economic prosperity by facilitating legitimate trade and enforcing our trade laws. As we know here at CBP, economic security is national security. Every day, we tackle issues that threaten our economic security, values, and well-being as a country.

As Executive Director for Trade Remedy Law Enforcement at CBP’s Office of Trade, I am responsible for key operational functions focused on detecting high-risk activity, deterring trade non-compliance, and disrupting fraudulent behavior and illicit activity to protect American consumers and American businesses from unsafe and unfair trade practices and products. Our team makes use of technology, outreach, allegations, intelligence, data analysis, and more to identify and investigate unlawful activity. As global trade evolves and supply chains become more complex and opaque, we will continue to innovate, leveraging ideas and technology into strategies that address emerging threats.

CBP Combats Forced Labor

One of CBP’s top priorities is to combat forced labor. Forced labor is a human rights abuse that affects almost 28 million men, women, and children globally. CBP is one of the few government agencies in the world granted legal authority to enforce against imported goods produced wholly or in part with forced labor. Our enforcement not only improves the living and working conditions of workers around the world but also protects law-abiding businesses from unfair competition.

In addition, CBP’s implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) has set an international precedent for customs administrations around the world in addressing the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by the People’s Republic of China.

CBP’s forced labor enforcement has led to substantial industry policy and operational-level reforms to address forced labor in their supply chains. As a result of our efforts, we see businesses and importers modify their behavior to maintain access to the U.S. market by developing social compliance and due diligence programs to ensure their supply chains are free of forced labor.

Successful enforcement against forced labor requires stopping high-risk goods at ports of entry and pushing our efforts beyond our borders. Indeed, our forced labor laws aim to prevent these goods from being produced at all.

The volume of modern trade, including the rapid expansion of e-commerce, requires CBP to prioritize action against high-risk goods to prevent prohibited goods from entry. As an agency, we must constantly balance keeping illegal, dangerous goods from entering the country and facilitating and expediting legitimate trade. While the agency has stopped more than 6,000 shipments for review between UFLPA enforcement in June 2022 and November 2023, this enforcement has yet to create port congestion or lead to unexpected supply chain disruptions.

To ensure transparency in our enforcement efforts, CBP hosted a Forced Labor Technical Expo in March 2023, where industry representatives shared best practices for supply chain transparency. We have also conducted over 300 engagements with stakeholders, including demonstrations, webinars, and working sessions about the law, and developed an interactive online dashboard to provide up-to-date enforcement statistics.

CBP continues to explore innovative technological solutions to enhance its forced labor enforcement efforts, but while technology plays an important role, it can only be effective when companies prioritize due diligence to ensure their supply chains comply with U.S. laws.

CBP combats environmental trade crimes

CBP’s mission to protect U.S. borders also involves dealing with environmental threats. Natural resource crimes—like illegal logging, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and wildlife trafficking—have far-reaching implications for the environment, public health and safety, and socio-economic development. Such offenses represent between $85 and $265 billion each year, starving local communities of much-needed revenue for their economies, and are often linked to money laundering and the funding of transnational criminal organizations.

Strengthening our environmental enforcement posture is one of the four pillars of CBP’s Green Trade Strategy, which was launched in 2022. This is an area we expect to place an increased focus on in the coming years. We hope that our work will set an example for customs administrations worldwide as one way to mitigate the impacts of climate change on global supply chains.

All of our work depends upon the dedicated team of skilled professionals who serve with honor and integrity to safeguard our country and our values. I am proud to work with them as we continue to modernize our efforts to support our vital mission.