FDRA hits out over tariff "anachronism"
17/12/2007
The US footwear retail industry is attempting to intensify its campaign against a tariff on shoe imports that has been in place since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Companies including Payless Shoe Source, Nike and Columbia Sportswear joined a campaign to end the import tax in the summer. This weekend, Peter Mangione, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, told the Washington Post: "It's an anachronism. It's just completely out of sync with what we need today."
He said the tariff was protecting a US shoe manufacturing industry that no longer exists, pointing out that almost 99% of the shoes consumers in the US bought last year—estimated at 2.4 billion pairs—were made elsewhere.
According to Mr Mangione's organisation, the US treasury received almost $2 billion in 2006 directly from taxes on footwear imports. The campaign aims to lower the amount importers, and by extension end-consumers, will have to pay.
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