Business Groups Ask Congress to Renew GSP in Lame Duck Session
More than 30 organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, asked House and Senate leadership to hold a vote on the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program during the lame duck session next month.
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"GSP supports American workers and manufacturers by reducing costs of imported inputs and equipment and helps American families stretch their paychecks by lowering the costs of consumer goods imported duty-free. Since GSP expired, American companies have paid over $4 billion in extra taxes," they wrote.
"GSP expiration has hindered American companies’ effort to diversify suppliers and build more resilient supply chains, including reducing dependence on China," they added.
They praised the House bill that passed out of the Ways and Means Committee (see 2404180068), which not only renews GSP benefits retroactively, but also makes Competitive Needs Limitations less restrictive by raising the dollar thresholds for CNLs, and by granting automatic waivers when there are no U.S. products that compete with the import. In 2020, if a country exported more than $195 million worth of a product under GSP, that product would no longer be eligible from that country; the bill would raise the threshold to $500 million. The threshold would grow by 2.5% a year, rather than $5 million a year, under the previous law.
The letter said Congress could extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act and the Haiti Economic Lift Program Act (HOPE-HELP) at the same time as a GSP bill, since both of those trade preferences are going to expire Sept. 30 next year.
"We urge you to find creative solutions to renew GSP, such as linking it to other bipartisan trade programs like AGOA and HOPE-HELP, while avoiding linkages to partisan issues that only will create further delay," they concluded.