SFIA Issues Statement On New Tariff Decision

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) said the association strongly opposes President Trump’s announcement to impose $200 billion in tariffs on almost 3,000 Chinese-made products. This action will place a 10 percent tariff, effective Sept. 24, 2018, on the affected products, and now that China has announced their intent to retaliate, the tariffs will increase to 25 percent on Jan. 1, 2019.

“We are extremely disappointed with this announcement,” said Tom Cove, president and CEO of SFIA. “We worked for months to petition the government to not impose these tariffs on sports and fitness products, and we remain convinced this is bad policy. It makes no sense to increase prices on products that keep Americans healthy and drive down health care costs.”

In total, SFIA filed 71 petitions, covering products on 38 tariff lines, requesting exemptions from the new tariffs. Eight petitions were accepted, effectively excluding several categories of sports protective headwear from the new tariffs. Overall, less than 300 out of 3,000 tariff lines received an exemption.

“SFIA will continue to work, at every opportunity and from every angle, to put an end to this trade war,” added Cove. “As I’ve said before, a trade war is not a solution. We strongly urge the president to consider alternate strategies to resolve this issue that do not negatively impact American businesses and consumers.”