[phil21]

I quickly scanned all those examples, and it doesn't appear a single one had to do with laundering country of origin? That's specifically what I mean - not just fining US companies for trying to under report custom values, which seems to be the bulk of those cases and is nothing new.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197961495 I think is the best quick example of the problem I am talking about here. Outright actual fraud by foreign companies laundering country of origin through intermediary countries. There is next to zero enforcement on this considering how rampant it is. There seems to be very little interest in doing any sort of "hard" prosecution on this problem - likely because it is complex and difficult to investigate appropriately.

I consider it rampant and enforcement a joke since I have spoken to vendors about past and future potentially tariffs and they are completely unconcerned by them. Minor cost of doing business increase to have products shipped through an intermediary company and relabeled. Maybe some quick final assembly if they really are trying to play the game.

I think current enforcement works okayish for folks trying to push the limits. It seems to fall over on outright fraud imposed by bad actors.

[llamaimperative]

This is a great and thoughtful response! Thank you for writing it up. I imagine it is fairly hard to catch (and/or prove) the origin laundering you’re talking about