The US-China Business Council (USCBC) represents over 200 American companies engaged in business across all industries and sectors in China, employing millions of Americans across the United States. We appreciate the opportunity to submit our testimony to the Office of US Trade Representative (USTR) on the proposed plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese imports, essentially covering all products imported by the United States from China.
In short: the Administration has identified the right issues that need to be addressed with China, which has led to some progress while negotiations have been underway. The imposition of a final round of tariffs on the equivalent of all remaining imports, however, will halt additional progress and undermine the gains that American companies would make in China, to the benefit of other foreign companies doing business in the market. The tariffs would also harm American consumers and damage American companies’ overall competitiveness due to the higher costs that will be associated with American-made products. To this end, we urge the Administration to not implement tariffs on this final proposed list of products.
