NEW YORK -- A coalition of more than 200 trade associations spanning agriculture, manufacturing, retail, technology, oil and even liquor will begin a new two-pronged attack next week to try to end trade policies they see as damaging. The campaign, called Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, will involve blanketing Capitol Hill with farmers and other business owners, plus debuting an ad aimed at parents that essentially says the trade war might be endangering babies.
The escalation comes at a crucial time: U.S. and Chinese officials are meeting this week with just a month to go before U.S. tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports are slated to more than double to 25 percent. It also marks a shift in strategy. After a year of struggling to directly sway President Donald Trump and his inner circle, including running ads on Fox News -- his favorite cable channel -- corporate lobbyists are ratcheting up pressure outside the White House.
"People have to think through different strategies because the normal operating procedure doesn't work," said Matt Priest, chief executive officer of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, which is part of the wider coalition. "Some of that strategy is paying off, but the response isn't the response we would've liked."
Next week, about 100 executives and business owners from companies big and small will visit Washington to lobby Congress, especially the large freshman class -- mostly Democrats -- that may still be formulating their stances on trade. Support is also needed for a bipartisan bill intended to rein in the president's trade authority.
The group descending on Washington includes people like Brent Bible, who runs a 5,000-acre corn and soybean farm in Romney, Ind. Soybeans were hit by retaliatory Chinese tariffs last year, pushing down prices. His farm also took a hit when U.S. levies on steel and aluminum made equipment pricier.
"Just get it fixed," said Bible, who holds an economics degree. If this dispute goes on much longer, he said, he worries about a "snowball effect" that could make soybeans almost worthless. Bible voted for Trump but said his support has waned in recent months. "If we don't get a deal soon, then we are looking at a major long-term impact."
This coalition was formed in September, and its activities so far have included hosting anti-tariff events across the country that generated local media attention and publishing statistics on the impact of the trade war. The new push takes that further. It will include a press conference on Wednesday with a bipartisan group of senators, including Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Pat Toomey, who crafted the bill to reduce presidential trade powers.
The coalition also had a new ad that tries to tug at the heartstrings of Americans by getting them to feel the pain it says Trump's trade war is causing. The spot, which will first run online in Washington and swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, features Cribs for Kids, a Pittsburgh-based charity that sells 100,000 low-cost portable baby beds a year to local governments and hospitals. The partners then give them to low-income families, who might not have one otherwise.
In the ad, the nonprofit's executive director, Judy Bannon, says Trump's tariffs are increasing costs for the cribs it imports from China. The charity has already seen a decline in orders after a 10 percent levy on Chinese goods last year, Bannon said in an interview. She paints the impact in life-and-death terms, saying that getting babies to sleep in cribs and on their backs -- a message reinforced on the charity's cribs -- reduces sudden infant death syndrome.
"As a nonprofit, we never thought tariffs would affect us, but they do," Bannon says in the 30-second video. The spot also tries to drive home the point that tariffs are essentially taxes on U.S. companies, despite Trump's Twitter proclamations that China is the one paying the duties. "President Trump says that China is paying these tariffs, but I see the cost on my invoices."
Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at encouraging government contractors to "buy American" as part of the administration's efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing.
The new order asks federal agencies to encourage those who receive federal financial assistance for infrastructure projects to use American materials and products, including iron, steel, aluminum and concrete products.
"We want American roads, bridges and railways and everything else to be built with American iron, American steel, American concrete and American hands," Trump said during an Oval Office signing ceremony.
Information for this article was contributed by Matt Townsend of Bloomberg News and by Jill Colvin and Darlene Superville of The Associated Press.
Business on 02/01/2019