“It is an extremely arbitrary and outdated tariff. Our politicians need to realize we operate in a global economy now; it isn’t 1810.”
That comment was provided by Alex Livingston, President of Summit Specialty International in Alpharetta, Georgia, in response to our new GSP renewal impacts survey. The small business imports interior pine doors from Brazil that are used in new residential construction.
Like yesterday’s profile of Candace Abitbul from Sophia Foods, this is not the first time that Alex has provided information about the impacts of GSP on his company. Back in 2014, Alex reported that because of GSP expiration Summit could not “invest in either people or new equipment in a manner in which we would like,” while in early 2015 Alex reported that a retroactive GSP renewal would allow Summit “to hire another worker, give raises, and invest in additional inventory.”
GSP expiration cost Summit $198,218.03 in extra import taxes. Since GSP renewal, it has gone above and beyond previous predictions: Summit has hired two workers, gave its five employees raises, and started providing medical insurance.
These types of outcomes are possible when American companies can invest in their workers and operations instead of paying those “arbitrary and outdated tariffs.” As the scheduled GSP expiration approaches next year, importers must continue to remind Congress that they operate in the 21st – as opposed to the 19th – century economy.
Summit Specialty provided the above information in response to our GSP renewal impacts survey. If you have not done so already, please take a minute to answer these questions today. As always, all data will be kept confidential and no company-specific answers will be attributed unless permission is explicitly granted. You can find another company responses here and here and some preliminary survey response data here and here.
