Tariffs: small tweak could make huge impact, USHSLA says
17/10/2018
The president of the US Hide, Skins and Leather Association (USHSLA), Stephen Sothmann, and the executive vice-president of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, Stephen Lamar, were the joint authors of an opinion piece in The Hill, a publication covering affairs in Washington DC, in mid-October. In the piece, they claimed that “a small tweak” to an existing programme would make a big difference to exporters of US raw materials and importers of overseas-made finished products.
Program 9802 has been in place for decades to allow companies in the US to pay lower tariffs on imported finished products if those products contain US raw material. However, at the moment, the importers of many finished leathergoods, shoes and apparel products are unable to discount from their tariff calculations because, even if they contain leather made from US hides or fabric wovern from US yarn, those materials are disqualified if they are processed outside the US.
Altering Program 9802 to remove this disqualification could reduce the tariff burden on an imported leather handbag by 40%, the authors pointed out, if they leather came from US hides.
“In an industry where margins are slim and profits are calculated to the third decimal place, this duty break can yield enormous savings,” the piece argued.
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