Mr. President. Mr. Grassley: prior to our cloture vote on the FSC-ETI bill, I read a list ofsome products that if they are going to be shipped out of the United States and exported to Europe,are going to have, right now, five percent tariffs added to them. Five percent tariffs added to thembecause of European retaliation against the United States because we haven’t passed this legislationyet, and that is going to cause jobs to be lost. And that tariff is going to go up over the course of thenext 12 months, a percent a month to 17 percent.
I would like to be just a little bit more specific in how some of those products and themanufacturers of those products or the producers of those products will be affected. In jewelrymanufacturing, we would have $2 billion in annual exports being jeopardized; 95 percent of jewelrymanufacturers are small businesses. So, there is obviously a huge potential impact on jobs in thejewelry industry. Folks like Stamper Black Hills Gold in South Dakota are targeted, just as oneexample of jewelry manufacturing. Racehorses are also being targeted. The average value of U.S.exports of racehorses is about $100,000. At five percent, that’s an extra $5,000 cost to our exports.
By the end of the year it will be an extra $14,000 on average; and for high-value horses, it will beseveral times more. These sanctions would impact states like New York, California, Florida, andMaryland. In the area of dairy, we will have sanctions on cheese exports impacting states likeWisconsin, and Vermont. For fruits and vegetables, such as citrus fruits and peppers, California isaffected. Florida is hurt as well, with tomatoes for another example. I could go on and on, but Ithink I will put in the Congressional Record a list that is beyond what I have just referred to. But wehave over 500 tariff lines that have been targeted, already with sanctions on them.
-30-
Source: Ranking Member’s News
