‘Suspend’ Tariffs and Seek Trade Talks With Chinese, 150 Groups Urge USTR
Continuing the “tit-for-tat tariff escalation” with China by enacting a third tranche of proposed Trade Act Section 301 duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports “only serves to expand the harm to more U.S. economic interests, including farmers, families, businesses, and workers,” wrote CTA, the National Retail Federation and 148 other trade groups in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer at Thursday's deadline for final comments in docket USTR-2018-0026.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
“Unilaterally imposing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in goods invites retaliation,” said the groups, which also included the Computer & Communications Industry Association, CompTIA, Information Technology Industry Council and Telecommunications Industry Association. Implementing the first two rounds of tariffs July 6 and Aug. 23 “has not resulted in meaningful negotiations or concessions” from the Chinese, they said.
The USTR’s July 10 notice in which the Trump administration proposed the third tranche (see 1807110034) said it devised List 3 “in response to Chinese retaliatory tariffs, and implicitly acknowledges that the expansive increase in products and trade that would be impacted” from new tariffs of up to 25 percent “no longer is connected back to the underlying Chinese government policies” that spawned the tariffs policy in the first place, they said. “This new list is punitive by design, but it will punish U.S. manufacturers and consumers hardest.”
With the holiday selling season “fast approaching,” orders to meet holiday demand “are in most sectors already made,” they said. They fear that the third tranche of tariffs “will hit” just as those products enter U.S. ports in the fall, “denying U.S. importers and consumers any time to adjust those orders for this season,” they said. “The situation will be ripe for significant supply chain disruption during the most critical time for retailers and their suppliers.”
The U.S. and China should “suspend further tariff actions and begin a comprehensive negotiation to address longstanding trade and investment issues,” said the groups. Though the administration “continues to argue that it will escalate tariff actions against China until China alters its behavior, we have seen no indication of China changing course,” they said. “We request that every effort be undertaken now to initiate meaningful negotiations expeditiously. We recommend no further tariff actions be taken until those negotiations have a chance to produce significant and verifiable results, and the Administration can fully assess the impact of tariffs thus far on American businesses, farmers, manufacturers, jobs, and consumers.” Lighthizer’s office didn’t comment.