Sen. Crapo, protect Idaho by reforming International Trade Commission | Opinion
When Idaho’s Sen. Mike Crapo recently became chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, our state gained significant influence to shape President Donald Trump’s America first policies.
As chairman, Crapo will help oversee Trump’s trade agenda and deliver fair trade deals for the American people. As he does that, we’d like to see Crapo prioritize “Idaho First” trade policies that protect our state, because good Idaho companies are already under attack.
For far too long, American jobs have been outsourced overseas. Every day, foreign governments and companies undermine American industry by flouting the rules of free and fair trade. They steal American intellectual property, export goods to the U.S. at artificially low prices, undercut “Made in America” products, and, as a result, leave us with massive trade deficits.
Idaho needs more help defending itself, and Crapo has an opportunity to deliver by reforming the International Trade Commission, a premier avenue for bad actors to exploit American companies.
Congress created the ITC in 1916 to safeguard American industries from unfair trade practices. The agency was created to be a helpful tool to address trade lawbreaking and protect American workers. But in practice, the ITC hurts the very companies it’s supposed to protect.
Specifically, non-practicing entities (NPEs) – colloquially known as “patent trolls” – buy up old, obsolete patents and bring lawsuits to the ITC against American companies. Oftentimes, patent trolls are seeking a financial settlement from businesses that would rather pay them than cover the extensive cost of the frivolous suit or risk an ITC ruling against their company. The ITC makes that problem worse by regularly misusing its authority to ban imports, forcing American companies to bend the knee to bad actors.
The results of the ITC’s wrongful decisions have been disastrous for American companies, including ones right here in Idaho. For instance, a patent troll is using the ITC to target Micron Technologies, threatening to upend its business model. Micron employs more than 5,000 Idahoans and plans to employ thousands more. If the ITC rules in favor of the patent troll targeting Micron, Idaho could suffer immensely. That means lay-offs, wage cuts, and financial distress for our communities.
If honest American companies like Micron are the ones being hurt, why does the ITC continue to make such harmful decisions? It doesn’t make sense.
I applaud Crapo for sounding the alarm when foreign bad actors have targeted Micron in the past. To protect Idaho and to champion President Trump’s economic agenda, we support and encourage him to do so once again.
It’s essential that we have an all-of-government approach to pushing through the MAGA trade agenda. I’m confident Crapo will continue to fight for Trump, and there is little doubt to me that an important place to do that is reforming rogue federal agencies like the ITC. I know that he can deliver.