Yesterday USFIA joined with thirteen other industry associations asking the Trump Administration to stop charging multiple tariffs on consumer products. As USFIA members know, one garment or pair of shoes can be charged the MFN tariff, a 301 tariff (from the first Trump Administration) and today's IEEPA tariffs.
We hope that the Administration will take a fresh look at the policy and will decide to not assess additional tariffs on consumer products.
"We support the administration’s policy to “unstack” tariffs in certain cases to ease the financial and compliance burden on industries and consumers. This includes the Section 232 steel and aluminum and auto tariffs, along with the negotiated agreements with Japan and the European Union (EU). The EU framework also capped tariffs on pharmaceuticals to prevent downstream impacts.
"However, whether other sectoral tariffs are meant to stack on applicable MFN, reciprocal, and Section 301 tariffs or be capped at the highest rate remains unclear. In the market today, as an example, the stacked standard and reciprocal tariffs are as high as 52 percent on some babies’ clothes, and as high as 87.5 percent on certain children’s shoes. Our associations seek clarity on this policy to unstack these tariffs. We support the administration’s existing policy for certain goods that face multiple tariffs and its finding that “such stacking exceeds what is necessary to achieve the intended policy goals” [1]. We request that you apply that same policy to consumer products manufactured or imported by our member companies."