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David Britt will appear before the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday to speak against tariffs.
Britt, Chairman of the Economic Development Committee for the Spartanburg County Council, will illustrate how BMW’s decision to build its first plant outside Germany and in Greer, connecting Greenville and Spartanburg counties, has pumped $9 billion into the upstate and saved a region decimated by the decline of the textile industry.
The hearing is to highlight “the potential harm tariffs could have on the industry and how they may be passed along to consumers,” as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the committee’s chairman, put it in a release last week. Watch the hearing here.
Following through with 25 percent duties on imports of all cars and car parts — which Trump advisers believe the president has been eyeing — would raise the total value of goods subject to import taxes from $285 billion to $645 billion, according to some Washington Post number-crunching.
The Greer plant exported more than 70 percent of its total production volume of 371,284 units last year the export value was about $8.76 billion, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The Greer production facility is BMW’s largest in the world. The supplier network has revived the manufacturing sector in an international supplier network that reaches throughout the state. The inland port was formed to facilitate BMWs, completed and kits, from Greer to Charleston, mostly by rail, to be shipped to worldwide ports.
Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport is building a $30 million, 110-square-foot warehouse cargo facility, 13-acre cargo ramp that will significantly increase cargo, jobs and will be able to accommodate three Boeing 747-800 aircraft simultaneously.
“The people who will suffer the most from these tariffs — it’s not foreign manufacturers or governments. It's the citizens of this country, of South Carolina, of Spartanburg,” Britt said in today’s Washington Post. “It’s nothing more than a tax on them.”
Other people to join Britt:
• Steve Gates, Gates Auto Family dealership, Richmond, Ky.
• Michael Haughey, North American Stamping Group, Portland, Tenn.
• Josh Nassar, Legislative Director, United Auto Workers, Detroit, Mich.
• Rick Schostek, Executive vice president, Honda North America, Marysville, Ohio.
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