February 14, 2019

Earlier this month, the Chamber hosted a presentation and roundtable discussion with John G. Murphy, Senior Vice President for International Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Murphy provided an overview on where U.S. trade policy is headed and presented an early assessment of the revised trade agreement for North America. Nearly 3.6 billion in trade takes place daily between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, and 14 million jobs in the U.S. are supported by trade within North America. To view KUSI coverage of the forum, click here.

Highlights from the forum:

• Recently imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum have increased production costs to auto manufacturers. Ford and GM state they are paying 1 billion more for these components which has wiped out the benefits they saw from tax reforms.
• In addition to these tariffs, the U.S. is considering implementing new tariffs on automobile imports. This could increase the price a new car by $4,000.

• Murphy outlined alternatives to the imposition of tariffs to accomplish U.S. goals including end the multi-front trade war, using U.S. trade remedies via the WTO, craft new trade agreements to raise standards. For example, USMCA contains the best provisions for digital trade, intellectual property protections as well as labor and environmental standards and could be used as a model for future agreements.

To review information about the impact of tariffs on the United States per state, click here.

To help USMCA move forward, sign up at www.USMCACoalition.org and use the online tool to reach Congress.