President Obama’s National Export Initiative is picking up steam. In support of the president’s Initiative, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced proposed measures on Thursday that will strengthen the enforcement of U.S. trade laws, specifically regarding the importing practices of non-market economies.

The National Export Initiative will focus on three key tasks: improving credit to small and medium-sized businesses who wish to export their goods, enforcing trade laws already on the books, and spearheading an administration-wide trade promotion strategy.

“The Obama administration is committed to aggressively enforcing our trade laws to ensure a level playing field for U.S. companies and their workers – the engines of our economic growth,” Locke said, according to a Commerce Department press release. “Today’s announcement is another demonstration of our continuing efforts to sharpen our trade enforcement tools.”

Locke’s strategy revolved around commissioning the International Trade Administration (ITA) to analyze the agency’s trade enforcement practices in order to identify ways in which the process could be improved. As a result, the Commerce Department has developed 14 proposals that will strengthen the enforcement of the nation’s antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) laws.

Antidumping duties are levied on foreign firms who, on the basis of a detailed investigation, are found to sell their products in the United States at prices that are below their home market price or their cost of production and cause injury to domestic industry. Countervailing duties are imposed after a similar investigation determines that imports into the United States have been unfairly subsidized by foreign governments and are injuring domestic producers.

Under the new proposals, Commerce will ensure that importers bear full responsibility for any future duties. Furthermore, and this is the kicker, Commerce is proposing to adjust its antidumping calculation to account for export taxes or value-added taxes included in the U.S. price that are not rebated upon export. The process for introducing these proposed changes will begin this fall.

Despite initial skepticism, it seems the Obama administration’s Initiative may actually provide a political and international clout to the unfair trade policies that have contributed to our economic woes. Although certainly not an all-encompassing solution, the Commerce Department’s proposed measures are definitely a step in the right direction. Obama’s initiative seems to focus largely on only the supply side of our export problem, though countering the backdoor tariffs of other countries will increase demand for U.S. exports. The initiative has at the very least provided a leaping ground for further improvement. Rome wasn’t built (and America can’t be rebuilt) in a day.

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