Public USTR hearings on impact of potential tariffs on $300B in Chinese goods wrap up

Global Business

Seven days of public hearings on the impact of potential tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods have wrapped up in Washington. The message from a range of U.S. businesses to the Trump administration: no more tariffs, please.

CGTN’s Giles Gibson reports.

Shoe brands, bike manufacturers, toy companies, shipping firms. Companies have been lining up in the U.S. capital for more than a week to try to stop the next round of tariffs, which experts call “List 4.”

“We are hearing from U.S. manufacturers and U.S. retailers that, if ‘List 4’ is implemented, prices will go up in the United States. That will have an impact on how much of those products are sold, which will affect the bottom line of retailers and those manufacturers. So, we do anticipate there will be both a jobs and sales impact,” Erin Ennis, vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council said.

The Trump administration, though, insists the next wave of tariffs would have a “very, very small” impact on consumers. U.S. President Donald Trump also argues tariffs will force companies to move production out of China, and some have like GoPro. But the company is shifting those jobs to Mexico, not back to the USA. Meanwhile, many trade experts believe the hearings won’t change President Trump’s tactics.

“The Trump administration has been warned that the tariffs are going to cause great economic damage. We haven’t seen it materialize just yet, and I think the president thinks his policies are working, thinks the Chinese economy is much more dependent on the U.S. economy than vice versa and that we could outlast the Chinese in a war of attrition here,” Dan Ikenson from the Cato Institute said

In just a few days, U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping will meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka. Many in the U.S. business community will be hoping for a repeat of last year’s G20 results-a pause in new tariffs and officials from both sides going back to the negotiating table. >