US association in sports industry opposes Trump's tariffs on Chinese products

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 18 - The Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) Tuesday issued a newsletter strongly opposing the new US announcement to raise tariffs on Chinese products worth 200 billion US dollars.

In the letter obtained by Xinhua, SFIA President and CEO Tom Cove said the leading US trade association of manufacturers, retailers, and marketers in the sports products and fitness industry, are extremely disappointed with the announcement which caused China's retaliation immediately.

"We worked for months to petition the government to not impose these tariffs on sports and fitness products, and we remain convinced this is a bad policy. It makes no sense to increase prices on products that keep Americans healthy and drive down health care costs," Cove said.

SFIA also disclosed that the group totally filed 71 petitions to the authority, requesting tariff exemptions on scores of products and at last eight petitions were accepted.

"SFIA will continue to work, at every opportunity and from every angle, to put an end to this trade war," Cove said.

"As I've said before, a trade war is not a solution. We strongly urge the President to consider alternate strategies to resolve this issue that do not negatively impact American businesses and consumers," he concluded.

According to the 2018 State of Industry Report released by the SFIA last week, the annual growth of US sports and fitness industry jumped 2.4 percent in 2017, but due to the trade war ignited by Washington, the small- and medium-sized companies are predicted to face significantly more difficulties in 2018.

The United States, disregarding overwhelming international and domestic opposition, announced the imposition of additional 10-percent tariffs on 200 billion US dollars worth of Chinese products from Sept. 24 and that it will take other escalating tariff measures.

In response, China announced on Tuesday it will impose additional tariffs on US products worth 60 billion US dollars starting from Sept. 24.