Several retread industry supporters have created Retread Instead, a group that plans to enhance the awareness of the environmental and economic benefits of retreading throughout North America.
For instance, because China is a “non-market economy that dumps truck tires into the U.S below fair market value,” says the group, it supports imposing tariffs, antidumping duties (AD) and countervailing duties (CVD) on commercial Chinese truck and bus tires that are imported into the United States.
At the beginning of the year, Retread Instead launched an aggressive “Dear U.S. Senator” letter campaign which has resulted in hundreds of letters being sent. The campaign’s main goal is to educate and inform all U.S. senators about the urgency of making sure that the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has a full complement of commissioners to ensure fair and balanced determinations.
Prior to the launch of the campaign, the president nominated several people to the Commerce Department (Gilbert Kaplan, undersecretary for International Trade; Nazakhtar Nikakhtar, assistant secretary of commerce for industry and analysis) as well as three individuals for the USITC commissioner positions.
Since the launch of the campaign, the commerce slots have been filled (i.e., confirmation occurred) and one of the USITC commission slots has now been confirmed (swearing in on April 2) so, there are now three USITC commission nominees who have yet to have a hearing.
With nominees still waiting in the wings, Retread Instead decided to invite several industry leaders to a roundtable planning meeting to gain support and resources to supercharge the campaign.
Marangoni Tread N.A. Inc. hosted the meeting at its North American headquarters in Madison, Tenn., and the meeting was attended by representatives from Premier Rubber Co., Tech International, McGriff Tire, Cross Dillon Tire, Marangoni Tread, Pomp’s Tire Service and Accella Corp.
The attendees were informed at the beginning of the meeting that antitrust laws applied and the only discussion would be that of the Retread Instead campaign. The agenda included topics such as:
* our administration's trade policy,
* website recommendations,
* update on Europe’s progress in getting Chinese tires stopped, and
* the need to rapidly expand the scope of support for the letter writing campaign as soon as possible.
“The meeting was a success and a unanimous decision was made to first and foremost zero in on the main goal of ensuring a full complement of commissioners well in advance of a possible ruling by the USITC on the appeal that the United Steel Workers Union filed,” says Retread Instead spokesperson Ron Elliott. “With the group’s collective resources, contacts and willingness to spread the word, we should see tens of thousands of letters going out to our U.S. senators very soon. We cannot stop there and are calling on all of our industry brothers and sisters to take a stand and show their support by sending letters now,”
For more information, visit www.retreadinstead.net. To show your support, go to https://retreadinstead.net/dear-senator-ltr-campaign and review the letter, You can have Retread Instead send your senator a letter on your behalf, or you can download the letter and send it yourself.
