On January 15th, President Trump signed an initial trade deal with China that includes pledges from the Chinese to more than double their purchases from American farmers in the first year. Overall in the 86-page agreement, the Chinese have also pledged to purchase $200B worth of goods and services from the United States in key industries such as manufactured products ($75B), energy ($50B), agriculture ($40B) and other services ($35B) over the next two years.
According to ACMA’s government relations firm The Vogel Group, the White House has been cautious in delineating out the values around each bucket of purchases, given the fluidity in expectations of the Chinese making good on their pledge. Some benchmarks might later be justified through “other economic rationale.” Also, the government does not want to encourage price speculation in commodity markets.
As part of the deal, the tariffs still stand. The only trade-off the President was able to give the Chinese was suspending List 4B, which greatly benefited companies in the apparel, electronics and toy industries (holiday gift categories).
January 31st Deadline to File Exemption Requests for List 4A
If you’re an ACMA member and have any filings outstanding that you would like to submit, please contact Lynn Noble at the ACMA (513-608-4749 lnoble@catalogmailers.org) and we can connect you directly with The Vogel Group to start work on these expensive and impactful tariffs. Additionally, if you would like to re-apply for exemptions or pursue alternate strategies to receive carve-outs for specific products, there are options available.
Phase One – Key Provisions
ACMA members are encouraged to click here and log on to the members’ side of our site for the key provisions of the “Phase One” trade deal. If you’re not a member, we are doing significant work on many different policy areas that affect your business’s financial performance. We hope you’ll give us a call to discuss how you can get involved and receive member-exclusive insight such as this, or simply click here to join the ACMA now.
ACMA Contacts:
Paul Miller, vice president & deputy director, 914-669-8391, pmiller@catalogmailers.org
Hamilton Davison, president & executive director, 800-509-9514, hdavison@catalogmailers.org