Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association Praises Removal of Steel Tariffs

Furniture World Magazine

President Bush announced that he is rescinding the Section 201 steel tariffs completely. Representative Vern Ehlers R-MI (2nd from right in attached photo) informed an audience at a roundtable on "The Future of American Furniture Making" about the President's decision. This is a great victory for steel consumers. Removing the tariffs provides a big boost to steel consuming industries that have suffered from the economic challenges of the last several years. The decision should also help restore U.S. global leadership on trade. The lifting of the tariffs was effective at midnight, Eastern Standard time, last night. The decision was heralded as the "right decision for the 13 million workers in steel-consuming industries, the right decision for the manufacturing sector that is just beginning to recover, and the right decision for the overall U.S. economy" by Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) President William E. Gaskin. The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA) International has been working through the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) to oppose the tariffs. They were scheduled to run through March 2005 but it became increasingly clear that keeping them in place would have resulted in deteriorating relationships with U.S. trading partners. Based on the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that the 201 tariffs were illegal, the European Union, Japan and other trading partners were prepared to retaliate with more than $2.2 billion in tariffs on U.S. exports. If the President had not eliminated the tariffs, steel-consuming industries as well as numerous other industries would have been further penalized by retaliatory tariffs. The announcement spread quickly through manufacturing plants around the country. While it is difficult to predict steel prices, it is clear that the termination of the tariffs will mean lower prices than would have prevailed if the tariffs remained in effect.