While in recent years it has felt like the landscape around supply chains and their disruptions has been continuously shifting from one global event to another, there is much we can do to create stability across these complex international networks and drive American innovation right here at home.
In fact, it’s been that adventurous spirit of American entrepreneurs and innovators that has grown many of our largest outdoor brands from a good idea on a mountain top to a trillion-dollar industry on the leading edge of product design and sustainability. It’s now in Congress‘ hands to not only support this successful and growing industry, but also to firm up our relationships with our allied trading partners and set new standards on worker and human rights.
Since the lapse of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade program, the outdoor industry has been hit with $1.7 billion dollars of additional tariffs—a cost to American businesses, workers and consumers alike. GSP is our nation’s best trade tool to shift supply chains out of China—where our intellectual property and cutting-edge ideas are at risk of piracy—to regional allies like Thailand and the Philippines. GSP reduces tariffs on backpacks, climbing harnesses, gloves, and many other outdoor products coming from those countries.
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The unnecessary burden of these tariffs not only increases the price of goods for consumers, but financially constrains companies from investing in the research and development that has made the American outdoor industry a world leader in innovation and design.
As much of rural America has been hollowed out by globalization, it is the outdoor industry that has continually shown up to build the next wave of American businesses in places that often have felt left behind by a modern economy. Outdoor entrepreneurs and new titans of industry are bringing advanced engineering, design and sustainability to small and rural communities whose workers have seen the outflow of these technical and highly skilled jobs.
At first glance, it might not seem possible that we can support our foreign trading allies and drive business and jobs in rural America, but that is why GSP has been a bipartisan priority for so long. It is not often that Congress has such an opportunity to support our interests abroad and our workers at home. I urge our elected officials to pass GSP renewal into law and keep alive the adventurous entrepreneurial spirit that has built our outdoor industry.
Kent Ebersole is the president of Outdoor Industry Association and an outdoor industry veteran who works to identify new opportunities for economic growth, deliver new programming for clean manufacturing and advocate for pragmatic trade policies and inclusive practices.
Based in Boulder, Colo., with offices in Washington, D.C., the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) is a member-based collective of business leaders, climate experts, policymakers, and outdoor enthusiasts committed to business growth and innovation while protecting—and growing access to—the benefits of the outdoors for everyone.