Industry Backlash

After imposing a 25percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods earlier this summer, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is now considering taxing another group of Chinese products worth four times as much at the same rate. These p

Previously, we notified the administration that the tariffs on List 2 substances would hurt our industry’s ability to do business in the United States. We cautioned that they would jeopardize nearly half of the $194 billion in announced investments and chemicals manufacturing that have been announced over the past decade, and we explained that the cost in the United States will go up not just for our member companies but also the downstream industries that buy U.s.-made chemicals, including farmers and manufacturers.

If tariffs on the $2.2 billion in chemicals and plastics imports that appeared on List 2 would weaken the competitiveness of the U.S. chemicals industry, then the $16.4 billion in tariffs on additional products of chemistry in List 3 would have a potentially irreparable impact on our industry’s economic structure and supply chain.

Manufacturing supply chains do not exist in a vacuum but move with the ebb and flow of market forces. They are complex and intricate and rely on interconnected networks and channels that work together as one to bring finished products to market. That is what makes supply chains vulnerable to the disruptive effects that tariff and nontariff barriers to trade can have in the global marketplace. Supply chains are not plug and play. They cannot easily be reconfigured to meet the whims of U.S. trade policy. Forcing companies to reconfigure their supply chains would threaten the viability of their businesses.

We reiterate in the strongest possible terms that the best way to preserve the

The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., where public hearings regarding proposed tariffs on approximately $200 billion worth of Chinese products were held on the working days between August 20 and 27