National Association of Manufacturers presses passage of 2017 Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act

The bill would eliminate $1.1 billion in import tariffs during the next three years and increase U.S. manufacturing output by over $3.1 billion.

   The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is pressing House lawmakers to pass the 2017 Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act (H.R. 4318), which promises to eliminate $1.1 billion in import tariffs during the next three years and increase U.S. manufacturing output by more than $3.1 billion.
   The bill would effectively eliminate on a temporary basis tariffs on imports of nearly 1,700 products not available in the United States. Aric Newhouse, NAM’s senior vice president of policy and government relations, said leaving the tariffs in place for these non-U.S. produced items “undermines the competitiveness of manufacturers in the United States by imposing unnecessary costs.”
   Congress has not passed a miscellaneous tariff bill since the U.S. Manufacturing Enhancement Act in 2010 expired at the end of 2012. Since then, Newhouse noted to House lawmakers that U.S. companies have “paid billions of dollars of tariffs on products not even made in the United States, to the detriment of good-paying American jobs and American competitiveness.”
   The 2016 American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act, which became law on May 20, 2016, established a new process for determining which imported products will be included in a miscellaneous tariff bill. Previously, Congress played the predominant role in these determinations.
   Under the new process, the task of collecting petitions requesting reduced or suspended tariffs on particular products; receiving public comments on those petitions; and making a final determination on whether to include a requested product in a miscellaneous trade bill is now carried out by U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC also obtains input from other federal agencies, including the Commerce Department, in making its determination for each petition.
   These reviews were concluded by Commerce, the ITC and the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees in August 2017, and both chambers drafted miscellaneous tariff bills before year’s end.
   A group of more than 200 trade associations and companies sent a similar letter to Capitol Hill lawmakers on Dec. 6, 2017, insisting that they pass the miscellaneous tariff bill as quickly as possible. 
   “For five years, manufacturers and other businesses have been held back by out-of-date and distortive import tariffs that are costing billions of dollars,” the group said. “We urge Congress to act now to eliminate these distortions and improve U.S. competitiveness by moving quickly to pass the comprehensive Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2017.”