Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) Webinar
U.S. Customs and Border Protection uncovered over $400 million in evaded antidumping and countervailing duties through EAPA investigations in the first half of 2025 alone, highlighting a massive crackdown on trade fraud amid heightened tariff pressures.
Key takeaways
- •Aggressive enforcement under the Enforce and Protect Act has intensified since early 2025, with CBP identifying hundreds of millions in unpaid duties and launching its largest-ever case worth over $250 million.
- •The creation of the DOJ-DHS Trade Fraud Task Force in August 2025 has escalated penalties for evasion, including non-mitigable 40% additional duties on transshipped goods and parallel civil-criminal actions.
- •Domestic industries and importers face rising risks from transshipment schemes via third countries, as data analytics and whistleblower incentives drive more investigations and potential retroactive duty payments plus penalties.
Escalating Duty Evasion Crackdown
The Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA), enacted in 2016 as part of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, empowers U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to investigate allegations that importers are evading antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duties—tariffs imposed to counteract unfairly priced or subsidized foreign goods that harm U.S. producers.
Enforcement surged in 2025 under renewed trade protection priorities. From January to August 2025, CBP uncovered more than $400 million in unpaid duties through EAPA probes, including a record-breaking investigation into 23 U.S. importers and Chinese shell companies routing goods through Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam—yielding at least $250 million in owed revenue, with more expected.
This momentum coincided with the August 2025 launch of the Trade Fraud Task Force by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, targeting tariff evasion, misclassification, and smuggling. New measures include Executive Order-imposed 40% additional duties on transshipped goods, with no mitigation allowed, and expanded use of data analytics for targeting.
Importers risk retroactive duty assessments, interest, civil penalties, and even criminal referrals, while domestic petitioners gain a transparent channel to challenge evasion. Tensions arise between aggressive revenue protection—bolstering U.S. industries—and the compliance burden on legitimate trade, particularly as transshipment through intermediary nations complicates origin verification.
CBP continues quarterly webinars on EAPA procedures, with one scheduled for September 17, 2026, reflecting ongoing efforts to educate stakeholders amid persistent evasion schemes.
Sources
- https://www.cbp.gov/trade/eapa
- https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-uncovers-more-400-million-duty-evasion-bad-actors-who-undercut
- https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2026/01/trade-fraud-2025-retrospective
- https://www.cbp.gov/trade/stakeholder-engagement/webinars
- https://sayari.com/resources/take-proactive-steps-to-avoid-new-transshipment-penalty