As Congress moves to drop tariffs, some US companies cry foul

Michael Korchmar was hiring. His family-owned travel-goods company was planning to make a new product, an insulated food bag, and he had put out help-wanted notices for up to 30 workers to run the sewing machines in his small factory on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
 
Those plans are now on hold. The reason: a bill quietly moving through Congress that would temporarily reduce or eliminate protective tariffs on 1,662 products, including the type of bag Korchmar had planned to produce. The bill would cut costs for rivals who make their bags in low-cost countries like China, he said, squeezing him out of the market before he had even entered it.

 
“Given that these products will be able to come into the country duty free, it’s not likely that there’s any ability for us to compete,” Korchmar said in a recent interview at his factory, which currently employs about 20 people.
 

Even as President Trump threatens to slap protective tariffs on steel and aluminum, lawmakers are moving forward with legislation to lower trade barriers on hundreds of other products, from chemicals to toasters, in a bid to lower costs for US companies and consumers.
 
Supporters of the so-called miscellaneous tariff bill, which unanimously passed the House of Representatives in January, say it would boost the economy by getting rid of tariffs designed to protect US industries that no longer exist. The National Association of Manufacturers says US companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year on unnecessary import fees.

 
Critics say miscellaneous tariff bills that began decades ago as modest efforts to help US manufacturers have in recent years become sprawling packages of tariff reductions that undercut domestic producers without the means to defend their interests in Washington.