The coalition, Americans for Free Trade (AFT), sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) expressing support for amending the America COMPETES Act of 2022, the APLF said in a press release.
“While we continue calling for an end to the trade war and elimination of the additional tariffs on US companies as well as China’s retaliatory tariffs, we believe reinstituting the section 301 exclusion process is critical to helping the US businesses,” the AFT said in a statement.
AFT represents every part of the US economy including manufacturers, farmers and agribusinesses, retailers, technology companies, service suppliers, natural gas and oil companies, importers, exporters, and other supply chain stakeholders.
“We welcomed the US Trade Representative’s announcement in October to open an exclusions process for a limited set of products. However, that process is only available to approximately 1 per cent of the original exclusion applications and the US Trade Representative has yet to announce any new exclusions from the process,” AFT added.
According to a recent Moody’s Investor Service Report, the tariffs ‘hit American businesses and consumers hardest,’ with China absorbing only 7.6 per cent of the tariffs ‘while the rest of the tab was picked up by Americans.’ A new, transparent, and fair exclusion process would help alleviate the economic burden on American businesses and consumers.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)