The Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 Act would significantly expand U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty enforcement — the trade-remedy system Commerce and the International Trade Commission use to put tariffs on subsidized or below-market imports that hurt American industries. The bill creates new 'successive investigation' rules with compressed timelines when an industry has just been through a case, authorizes Commerce to treat third-country subsidies as countervailable against the country of export (so a Chinese subsidy on a Vietnamese factory exporting to the U.S. is reachable), and lists 12 specific market distortions — including state-owned input suppliers, weak labor or environmental enforcement, and government export taxes — that let Commerce reject foreign cost data when calculating dumping. Currency undervaluation would become a countervailable subsidy for the first time. Nonresident importers would have to maintain U.S. assets sufficient to cover any duties they might owe, with carve-outs for Tier 2 and Tier 3 participants in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) program. The bill also gives Commerce stronger anti-circumvention authority — automatic suspension of liquidation, new importer-certification regimes, mandatory Federal Register publication of determinations — and limits importers' ability to protest CBP evasion determinations under the Enforce and Protect Act. All amendments apply to goods from Canada and Mexico under the USMCA Implementation Act. Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Texas leads the bill with a bipartisan group of 31 co-sponsors.
Corporate Benefits
- Trade-remedy reach against third-country subsidies — Subsidies by a third country (e.g., Chinese subsidy on a Vietnamese factory) now countervailable against the country of export
- Currency undervaluation — Newly defined as a countervailable subsidy under Commerce's authority
- Commerce discretion to reject foreign cost data — Allowed when any of 12 listed market-distortion factors are present (state-owned inputs, weak labor/IP/environmental enforcement, export taxes on inputs, etc.)
Transparency & Accountability
- Federal Register publication — Circumvention-inquiry determinations must now be published with supporting facts and conclusions
- CBP evasion-determination protest rights — Liquidation decisions in EAPA cases removed from §514 importer-protest procedure
Congressional Summary
Leveling the Playing Field 2.0 ActThis bill addresses unfair trade practices by making various changes to U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws. Antidumping laws provide relief to U.S industries and workers that are materially injured or threatened with injury due to imports of like products sold in the U.S. market at less than fair value, while countervailing duty laws provide such relief from imports of products subsidized by a foreign government or public entity.Specifically, the bill establishes a process for successive antidumping and countervailing duty investigations. Successive investigations may be concurrent (an ongoing investigation of the same product) or recently completed (not more than two years before the date of the initiation of the successive investigation). Further, the bill establishes a timeline for the Department of Commerce to issue determinations in successive investigations.Among other provisions, the bill authorizes Commerce toapply countervailing duty law to subsidies provided by a foreign government or public entity to a company operating in a different country,use another method for calculating the cost of production in specific circumstances, andrequire importers to certify that the imported merchandise is not subject to an antidumping or countervailing duty order.Additionally, the bill statutorily establishes procedures for Commerce to conduct circumvention inquiries, including by specifying the deadlines for preliminary and final determinations.The bill also provides statutory authority for Commerce to investigate currency undervaluation as a countervailable subsidy.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2025-02-24
- Date Added
- 2026-05-09
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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