Florida Senator Asks for Section 301 Case on Chinese Garlic
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to open a Section 301 trade investigation on Chinese garlic growers, arguing that the sector is subsidized by forced labor and "other unfair and unethical trade practices."
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Scott also asked the Bureau of International Labor Affairs to name garlic a product that is grown using child or forced labor, on its annual list. "Addressing this issue will help ensure that the goods imported into our country align with the values we hold dear -- freedom, justice, and human dignity," he told ILAB Director Thea Lee.
Scott told Tai that there is an "influx of imported garlic from the People’s Republic of China," and that garlic is "flooding the U.S. market and causing significant harm to American garlic farmers."
There have been antidumping duties on fresh garlic from China since 1994. While initially those duties stemmed the imports from China, over the years U.S. importers have purchased more than 100 million pounds of Chinese garlic annually. According to the most recent International Trade Commission sunset review of the AD order, Chinese market share of fresh garlic is lower than it was when the case began, and also lower than it was in 2005, 2011 and 2016; the total volume imported also was lower in 2021 than it had been in 2018, its peak year. The review didn't say what proportion of fresh garlic is domestic, but said it is lower than 45.5%, where it was in 1994, but higher than it was in the second, third and fourth reviews. Because consumption of fresh garlic has been growing over the decades, the number of heads of garlic supplied by domestic growers was the highest it had ever been in 2022, the review said.