On April 3rd, the Trump Administration announced additional tariffs on a variety of products from China, following its investigation into perceived Chinese intellectual property theft — known as the Section 301 Investigation. The tariff list released on April 3rd does not include any footwear tariff lines. Prior to the release of the list, a number of published reports indicated U.S. footwear imports would be a potential product targeted by the Administration. This would have meant additional tariffs for Chinese-made footwear on top of the already-high tariffs applied to all footwear crossing U.S. borders. FDRA worked hard to educate key policymakers that increasing footwear duties would harm U.S. footwear consumers and companies, and we will continue to stay engaged with the Administration and key policymakers, now that the 30-day comment period has started.
– FDRA PRESIDENT AND CEO MATT PRIEST