Sponsors (13)
The bill gives U.S. agencies stronger, faster tools to block suspect foreign-linked shipping and pursue remedies for seized or discriminated assets—strengthening national-security and investor protections—while risking trade retaliation, higher costs and supply-chain disruption for U.S. businesses and consumers, and increased legal and diplomatic friction.
Taxpayers, small businesses, and investors: blocks imports from vessels loaded at designated foreign ports and expands USTR tools to deter foreign governments from seizing or discriminating against U.S. assets, reducing entry of suspect goods and protecting U.S. economic and national-security interests.
Small businesses and financial institutions: allows businesses to invoke section 301 when foreign governments seize or discriminate against their assets so USTR can investigate and seek remedies, giving affected firms a clearer path to challenge foreign economic harms.
Federal agencies, Congress, and state governments: requires faster identification and public notice (within 60 days) and clarifies legal grounds for USTR action, providing timelier information and clearer authority that can speed responses and reduce uncertainty for U.S. entities operating abroad.
Taxpayers, importers, small businesses, and consumers: increases risk of foreign retaliation and strains diplomatic/trade relations (including in the Western Hemisphere), which can reduce market access and raise prices for U.S. consumers and businesses.
Importers, small businesses, and maritime service providers: barring vessels and associated restrictions could disrupt supply chains, increase costs for U.S. importers, and reduce revenue for ports, shipping, dry-docking, and repair businesses.
USTR, businesses, and state governments: expanded criteria and ambiguous definitions (e.g., ownership thresholds, 'accessible only through land owned by a U.S. person') raise enforcement complexity, administrative burden, and litigation risk, delaying implementation and increasing costs.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Directs agencies to list foreign ports tied to seized U.S.-person land and bars vessels tied to those facilities from U.S. ports; it also expands section 301 grounds to cover certain asset expropriations and discrimination.
The bill creates a process to identify foreign port facilities in the Western Hemisphere that sit on land a U.S. person owns or controls but whose host government has seized or nationalized that land since Jan 1, 2024, and then bars vessels tied to those facilities from entering or receiving services in U.S. ports. It also amends the Trade Act to add expropriation, arbitrary treatment, denial of due process, and nationality-based discrimination with respect to U.S. persons’ assets as actions the U.S. Trade Representative can treat as "unreasonable or discriminatory" for trade enforcement under section 301. Together the measures give the executive branch new tools to punish or block goods and vessels tied to foreign seizures of U.S. persons’ property, and to treat certain asset-related measures by foreign governments as grounds for trade remedies.
Official title: Take measures with respect to certain property that is nationalized or expropriated by foreign governments, to amend section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to include expropriation of the assets of United States Persons in acts, policies, and practices of foreign countries that are unreasonable or discriminatory, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 21, 2025 by William Francis Hagerty · Last progress July 21, 2025