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US President Donald Trump’s administration has accused dozens of countries of helping China to illegally dodge United States tariffs, depriving government coffers of tens of billions of dollars in annual revenues.
In a report published on Thursday, the White House said more than 40 countries have participated in a shadow logistics network facilitating the flow of Chinese goods into the US under false labelling.
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China’s biggest enablers in the “Great Transshipment Scam” include the European Union, Mexico, Canada, India, Japan and South Korea, the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy said in the report.
Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, also play “an important role” in the network, the trade policy office said.
US manufacturing sectors hit hardest by the transshipments include electrical equipment, integrated circuits, aluminium products and motor components, according to the report.
“Every dollar lost to this Great Transshipment Scam is a dollar stolen from American workers, manufacturers, and taxpayers,” the office headed by Trump appointee Peter Navarro said in the report.
China’s embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside of regular office hours.
The dozens of countries named in the report have yet to publicly respond to its claims.
Warning that countries facilitating transshipments are being “put on notice”, the White House said border authorities have employed artificial intelligence to integrate shipment data and other information as part of strengthened enforcement efforts.
“The message to the world is simple. The age of untraceable illegal transshipment is over,” the trade office said.
“What once seemed like quiet paperwork manoeuvres – relabelling, repackaging, re-invoicing – has become a matter of economic sovereignty and national will.”
Trump has shaken up global trade with a slew of protectionist trade policies since returning to the White House in January last year.
In its latest trade salvo, the Trump administration announced levies of 10-12.5 percent on imports from dozens of countries accused of turning a blind eye to forced labour.
A group of 25 Democratic-led US states, including New York, California and Colorado, has challenged the tariffs in court, calling the measures a pretext to reimpose Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” duties, which the US Supreme Court struck down in February.
Amitendu Palit, a trade expert and professor at the National University of Singapore, called the White House report the latest effort by the Trump administration to coerce countries into accepting greater market access for US goods.
“The delegitimisation of liberation day tariffs have meant huge loss for the Trump administration: both in terms of the refunds that it has had to pay, as well as in credibility,” Palit told Al Jazeera.
“Therefore it is seeking out more and more ‘innovative’ forms of weaponising market access. This follows the earlier Section 301 tariffs imposed on various countries for not being able to limit use of forced labour.”
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