Over the last few weeks, the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees held hearings on trade. The Coalition asked companies to send a few sentences that we could include in our submissions for the record. Several dozen responded, and you can read our final submission on “jobs and a healthy economy” here.

We need to submit comments for the other two hearings tomorrow (2/10) and would love to include additional company responses. So if you haven’t already, please take a moment to fill out the form at this link.

We want to focus on the costs of GSP expiration (e.g., we had to lay off workers, cut wages, etc.) and what you could do if Congress renewed GSP with refunds of taxes paid to date (e.g., we would hire XX workers). The more specific, the better. Here are some examples provided to date:

  • Fred Cohen, Owner of Omicron Granite & Supplies in Pompano Beach, Florida: The failure to renew the GSP has cost my company over $100,000 per year in additional taxes, which has kept me from hiring at least two more workers. Please renew the GSP and make it retroactive.
  • Gabriel Khezrie, President of Fremada Gold Inc. in New York, New York: Due to the softness of the jewelry business in general, there has been tremendous pushback by our customers. They will not accept the additional price increases to accommodate the 5.71% tariffs that were never part of our pricing equation. This has led to less billings at our company. Accordingly we have had to let some staff go.
  • Greg H. Kirkland, President of Kirkland Associates, Ltd. in McMinnville, Oregon: In 2014 our small import company paid over $50,000 in import duty charges on products imported from India. We currently desperately need to hire two additional employees. However, we simply can’t afford to do that as the company profits will not support two new employees and continued import duty charges.
  • Abe Shaheen, Owner of Shaheen Import Export Co. in Virginia Beach, Virginia: The GSP expiration and uncertainty about renewal has resulted in laying off three of workers at our company, and not being able to hire new employees. Retroactive GSP renewal would lead to more jobs at our company, and will enable us to expand our business.