Key Takeaways:
- The Department of Justice now treats tariff evasion and trade fraud as a top corporate enforcement priority, backed by a dedicated National Fraud Enforcement Division and a cross-agency Trade Fraud Task Force.
- Prosecutors weigh management knowledge, concealment, and the duration of a scheme heavily when deciding whether to charge a company.
- Enforcement reaches the full supply chain: importers, customs brokers, manufacturers, distributors and resellers can all face scrutiny.
Trade compliance has always been important, but it has never quite dominated every aspect of business as it has over the past couple of years. It appears that’s not changing any time soon, either.
On Oct. 1, 2026, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, who leads the Department of Justice’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, issued a directive instructing prosecutors to prioritize corporate cases involving tariff evasion and trade-related fraud, including import schemes and forced labor. The directive calls for an aggressive, all-tools approach, and the division has added more than 500 attorneys and staff to carry it out.
Global Trade Enforcement Has Already Begun
A standalone Global Trade and Commerce Enforcement Section now sits inside the division, and the Department of Justice is working alongside the Department of Homeland Security through a Trade Fraud Task Force launched in August 2025. According to the Department of Justice, the task force has already surpassed $1 billion in combined civil and criminal recoveries, penalties, forfeitures, and publicly charged losses.
The Department of Justice announced in May 2026 that Perfectus Aluminum and several related companies agreed to pay $549.5 million under the False Claims Act to resolve allegations that they evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on more than 2.2 million aluminum extrusions from China. This is the largest settlement tied to the task force to date.
Why Supply Chain Partners Can’t Pass the Blame
Enforcement does not stop at the company listed on an import entry. Manufacturers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, distributors, warehouses, and resellers can all draw scrutiny. Import data, supplier statements, origin documents and customs declarations need to tell the same story. When they don’t, investigators tend to find the gap.
Prosecutors give significant weight to specific factors. According to recent guidance, they consider whether company management knew about misconduct, whether anyone tried to conceal it from regulators or auditors, and whether the conduct lasted three years or more. Cases spanning multiple federal districts or involving losses of $25 million or more draw added attention.
How Companies Can Respond Now
Start with the fundamentals. Review tariff classification, valuation methods, country-of-origin documentation, and forced-labor screening. Then go further. Make sure concerns actually get reported, investigated, and escalated. Can an employee reach a compliance leader directly, without going through a manager who might prefer silence? Are suppliers verified independently, rather than taken at their word? Is there a clear, dated record of who decided what?
The Department of Justice’s enforcement framework rewards companies that find problems first. Voluntary self-disclosure, cooperation, and genuine remediation can meaningfully improve a company’s position before an investigation ever begins. A focused compliance review today costs far less than the inquiry that follows tomorrow.
(Note: AI assisted in summarizing the key points for this story.)