With Wednesday’s expiration of the GSP program and the upcoming recess ensuring at least six weeks of higher taxes – and possibly much longer – there is lots of frustration among GSP importers. But we’re not alone.
New U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman released a statement saying: “The Obama Administration urges Congress to extend this important trade program, which increases U.S. competitiveness, keeps costs low for U.S. consumers, and benefits some of the world’s poorest countries.”
In a blog post on The Foundry, Bryan Riley also noted the lose-lose nature of GSP expiration, saying: “By failing to extend GSP, the United States is harming momentum for economic reform and liberalization in developing countries while increasing the cost of imported goods for U.S. businesses and consumers.”
As one of our GSP Supporter List companies emailed: “If people like you and I just took off without finishing our work, we’d get fired…”
Betty Lofquist commented on our post about expiration with the clearest and most succinct reaction: “This is killing my business!”
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
