“A letter from the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) to US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer said while the industry agreed with the US governments objective of eliminating illegal subsidies for Airbus, it was “stumped” as to how imposing taxes on US imports of clothes, textiles and accessories would accomplish that goal.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>””Our members, and the millions of American workers we employ, source and sell clothes and home textile made in the United Kingdom and handbags made in France to American consumers,” wrote Nate Herman, senior vice president, policy at the AAFA. .div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”97% of all clothes and over 99% of all handbags sold in the US today are imported, he said, adding wool sweaters from England and Scotland and handbags made in France “have a certain cachet with our customers, American consumers”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>””As a result, US companies import a lot of handbags from France and sweaters from the UK. And our American workers design, develop, market, and sell these sweaters and handbags to American consumers.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>””If a punitive tariff is imposed by the US government, our members will be forced to source fewer handbags, which will obviously lead to lower sales, which impacts our workers – American workers. Or, our members will be forced to charge higher prices, which again will lead to lower sales, which again impacts our workers – American workers.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>””With the 25% punitive tariff already in place on US imports of UK sweaters (and suits and home textiles), this concept has become reality. This is quite literally a tax that hits Americans in the pocketbook and leaves them out in the cold.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”He also noted Europe has already retaliated against imports of US-made jeans and other US-made clothing, and threatened retaliation against US-made shoes, over the steel and aluminum dispute.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>””The current punitive taxes have done nothing to date to change Europes behaviour. The expansion of those punitive taxes to more of our products will do nothing to change Europes behaviour. Why? Because our industry has nothing to do with civil aircraft subsidies.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>”.div style=”font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;”>””Yet, retaliation against these products, if implemented, will have a significant impact on our industry, US manufacturing, and our American workers.
Date:1/20/2020
Source:english.ahram.org.eg