For many years, TRI’s GSP savings funded multiple full-time salaries. Despite loss of GSP for products imported from India and Turkey, GSP “still saves our company the equivalent of more than a full-time employee’s annual salary.”

Watch TRI Executive Vice President and CFO Jeff Wright explain how “maintaining full employment, full wages, and employee benefits is our top priority as is supporting our US customers who are trying to do the same for their American workers” – and how GSP renewal would help them do it.

If you’re a GSP importer, submit your own video testimonial here.

GSP expiration in 2013 made its products less competitive and cost 3V millions of dollars in lost sales. At the same time, customers that continued purchasing at higher prices were made less competitive by the extra $500,000 in taxes assessed by Customs.

The retroactive GSP renewal by Congress allowed 3V Sigma to build an addition to its warehouse and lowered taxes on the business by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Continued GSP benefits are pivotal for 3V Sigma and the American manufacturers it supplies.

Despite the slight overall decline, some states such as West Virginia and Nevada saw very large increases in GSP imports and savings compared to February 2016, as shown in the graphic below.

GSP saved West Virginia companies $91,000 in February, up $36,000 (65 percent) compared to one year earlier. Chemicals and mining tools from India and electrical conductors from Ecuador contributed most to West Virginia’s GSP increases.

GSP saved Nevada companies $330,000 in February, up $128,000 (63 percent) compared to one year earlier. Plastics accessories (e.g., wallets, glasses cases) from India, flourides (chemicals) from Thailand, and tungsten concentrates from Bolivia contributed most to Nevada’s GSP increases.

In addition to West Virginia and Nevada, companies in 10 other states saw GSP savings increase by at least 20 percent, including: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Savings on GSP imports from Kenya increased by 153 percent compared to February last year. New Jersey companies’ purchases of nuts were among the top GSP imports from Kenya. GSP eliminated about $265,000 in import taxes on gelatin in February, with about of those savings on imports from Iowa.

More monthly GSP import and savings highlights are on our Graphics page.

REMINDER: GSP expires at the end of 2017. Click here to learn about ways to take action and support GSP renewal this year.

Overall, GSP saved U.S. companies $472 million in the first eight months of 2016. GSP savings in 2016 are up about $40 million, or 9 percent, compared to the first eight months of 2015.

While fretting over the potential tariffs, they gave some of the back-story: the company supplies various chemical intermediates to U.S. chemical manufacturers.  This small business helps American manufacturers keep their raw material costs down by importing certainly specialty chemicals from India under GSP – typically saving tariffs of 6.5 percent.

The company spent three years trying to win a piece of new business with one of the largest U.S. chemical manufacturers.  This involved extensive testing by chemists for both the U.S. supplier and its potential customer and multiple trips to India for further tests.  After three years (!)  the two sides reached a win-win agreement: the large U.S. manufacturer gained access to a key raw material at a good price and small U.S. specialty supplier had a new, big customer.

Yet small profit margins, high tariffs, a long-term contract, and potential GSP expiration threaten the deal.  Only two shipments have arrived to date, but their profits didn’t even cover the costs associated with winning the business.  Prices are already locked in for future shipments, so the specialty supplier will be forced to absorb the costs if GSP expires and the tariffs on Indian chemicals revert back to 6.5 percent.

So what’s the payoff for three years of hard work? GSP expiration may cause the small business that landed a major deal to lose money on each shipment. 

What Do We Do?

At the most basic level, we make sure they know that GSP is scheduled to expire on July 31.  Sounds obvious, but… Congress deals with many, many issues and if GSP importers don’t remind them about GSP, who will?

We also highlight some key facts and figures from our GSP Annual Report.

Most importantly, we show them the local impacts of GSP.  For both of today’s meetings, that involved our new 2012 Ohio report:

Since our meetings were on the House as opposed to the Senate side, we used the Panjiva import/export database to find constituent companies importing goods receiving duty-free treatment because of GSP.

For Ohio’s 16^th District, this includes well-known companies like Energizer, which imports batteries from Indonesia, and Moen, which imports faucet parts from Thailand and Turkey, as well as smaller companies like Zibex, which imports chemicals from India.  Here’s what the district-specific information for Ohio’s 12^th District looked like:

So when we set up meetings, drilling down to the most local level possible is always our goal.  Tomorrow, we’ll talk about why it is so important.

North Carolina companies imported an estimated $511 million under GSP in 2011, saving them on average 4.2%. India was the most important source of GSP imports, accounting for about 36 percent of the tariff savings. Hetercyclic chemical compounds were North Carolina’s top import under GSP in 2011 and would have faced average tariffs of 6.5% without GSP.

Yet GSP is set to expire on July 31, 2013, and companies could face tariffs higher tariffs starting on August 1 if Congress does not pass legislation renewing GSP. When GSP expired at the end of 2010, American companies paid nearly $2 million per day, every day, until Congress finally acted 11 months later!

This graphic shows just some of the negative impacts from the last GSP expiration. It also helps explain why more than 335 companies and associations – including at least 21 in North Carolina – joined the 2011 GSP Supporter List urging renewal of the program when it last expired.

Are you a North Carolina company that would be hurt by GSP expiration? If so, please take 30 seconds to let Congress know by adding your name to our free 2013 GSP Supporter List right now.