The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), Consumer Technology Association, and Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) are among some 150 signatories to a letter calling on President Trump to back off his planned escalation of China tariffs.
The threatened tariff increase is scheduled to kick in Sept. 1, with another potentially kicking in a month later if China and the U.S> have not struck a new trade balance.
Those signatories, members of the American for Free Trade Coalition, said they wanted the President to call off all the tariffs on China, which they said could do a number on the holiday selling season.
“The full adverse impact of these tariff increases will be felt entirely in the United States and could represent one of the largest tax increases in American history,” they wrote the President, who prides himself on tax breaks and has said that it is China that feels the brunt of the tariffs.
“We understand your frustration with China and are opposed to the tariffs the Chinese government has imposed as well,” they wrote. “But subjecting U.S. companies, the workers they employ, and the consumers they serve to new and unprecedented taxes takes us further away from the deal you are working to craft.”
The President has ordered U.S. companies, though he subsequently suggested he wanted them to stay–though only if China relented on its tariffs.
The coalition warned that calling for U.S. companies to exit the second largest economy in the world was unrealistic.
This story originally ran on multichannelnews.com.
See also: Trump ‘Orders’ Companies To Ditch China, Make Products In USA: Tom’s Guide Report
