Do zones undermine the Tariff Code or the Congressional intent embodied in it?
No to both questions. Virtually all of the non-manufacturing-related trade that passes through trade zones goes to export markets, or enters U.S. commerce at the same tariff rate that would have been assessed had the trade entered U.S. commerce directly after its arrival. With respect to manufacturing activity, tones provide for releasing some of the Code’s unintended adverse effects; by providing this opportunity, zones help make the Code more economically efficient. Congress has never intended for the Code to encourage the importation of a product by discouraging the production of the same product here in the United States. Unintentionally, there are instances in which the Tariff Code has irrationally encouraged U.S. firms to import rather than produce in the U.S. Zones create an opportunity to reverse these instances, restoring the intent with which Congress expected the Code to operate. Are there’ any practical or economic limits to the number and uses of zones? For the foreseeable
