The US International Trade Commission (USITC) is an independent agency of the federal government set up in 1916 as the Tariff Commission, renamed International Trade Commission in 1975, under the provisions of the Trade Act of 1974. The Commission comprises six members, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for nine year term. The Chairman and the Vice Chairman must be of different political parties and not more than three of its members can be of the same party.
The Commission functions as a federal resource base, repository and analyst of foreign trade related information. This body serves both the President and the Congress as an advisory, fact-finding agency on tariffs and international trade issues, in order to facilitate the development of sound and informed trade policies.
The agency is empowered to investigate into the effects of dumped and subsidized imports on competing domestic industry and hold global safeguard investigations. As a follow-up, this body directs corrective actions like levy of countervailing duty, anti dumping duty and so on for redress of grievances of the affected domestic industries.
This forum also decides complaints of infringement of intellectual property rights by imports. The Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, empowers the Commission to ban imports from producers engaged in unfair trade practice or guilty of infringement of intellectual property laws on patents, trade marks or copyrights.
However, the President may strike down any order of the Commission for policy reasons.
This body administers the harmonized tariff schedule of US imports.
Though the USITC is not a court, its administrative law judges hold trial-type official administrative hearings. In case, where a Section 337 of the Smoot-Hawley Act complaint of unfair imports has at least three votes from its six Commissioners, an official investigative hearing will be initiated by an administrative law judge.
(More :http://www.usitc.gov/)
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