NEWSPRINT TARIFFS BLOCK WELCOMED
Unlike recent presidents, President Donald Trump believes strategically used tariffs can have a more advantageous effect than unfettered free trade.
The jury is still out on the overall effect of the tariffs he has implemented, but the jury is in on a specific case — tariffs on Canadian uncoated groundwood paper (used for newsprint, commercial printing and book publishing).
The United States International Trade Commission, after hearing testimony last month that the tariffs were hurting the very industry they were implemented to help, blocked the tariffs. In essence, it said the one U.S. paper company that complained had not been hurt by subsidies given to Canadian paper companies.
The U.S. imported an estimated $1.21 billion worth of uncoated groundwood paper last year. Canadian paper mills had provided about 60 percent of that 2.4-million-ton demand, according to an official from the News Media Alliance, a trade group that represents almost 2,000 news organizations.
The tariffs (on both Canadian producers and exporters of the paper) had raised prices on newsprint to some U.S. operations up to 30 percent and caused a number of mostly middle- and small-sized newspapers to reduce staff, reduce size and reduce the number of local events they covered. That’s not only bad for the businesses and individuals involved but also for the public in getting the full scope of information it deserves rather than the dribs and drabs it gets from other media and the slanted or downright fake news delivered from many online sources.
The Commerce Department had lowered the tariffs this month, but the International Trade Commission was unanimous in its verdict in finding that no injury was occurring to the U.S. paper industry by the Canadian imports. It would have had to find injury was occurring in order to make the tariffs, which were first implemented in January, permanent.
David Chavern, chief executive officer of New Media Alliance, said in a statement that the group hopes the reversal of the tariffs “will restore stability to the market and that publishers will see a full and quick recovery.”