US footwear bosses call for shoe tariff end
A number of footwear industry executives have written to US Trade
Representative Ron Kirk expressing the view that existing shoe tariffs are outdated and expensive for consumers.
Those involved include Brown Shoe, BBC
International, RG Barry, GH Bass,
Clarks, HH Brown Shoe, Topline and Wolverine World Wide.
Brown Shoe chief executive, Diane
Sullivan, wrote: "Brown Shoe Company workers are the face of the 21st
century footwear industry. They design, market, sell and distribute shoes and
have helped make America's footwear industry the world leader in developing and
marketing footwear.
"TPP [the Trans-Pacific Partnership] is also critical for American
consumers. As you know, shoe tariffs were established as part of the
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 to protect a domestic manufacturing industry
that has been in steady decline since the 1980s.
"Today, 99% of shoes sold in America are
imported, yet American consumers pay hundreds of millions of dollars in
tariffs. These excessively high duties have done nothing to keep jobs here, but
they do make shoes more expensive and they hamper our ability to expand
employment."
