The US Chamber of Commerce calls on the Trump administration to carry out a “tariff exclusion process” immediately in order to prevent the US economy from getting into a recession and small companies caused “irreparable damage”.
In a letter received by CNBC for the first time, the massive Business Lobbying Group asked the most important Trump trading officers to automatically collect tariffs for all importers for small companies, and for all products that “cannot be produced in the USA” or are not available in Germany.
In the letter from the CEO of the Chamber, Suzanne Clark, the Trump government also asked to set up a process for companies in order to quickly receive tariff exclusions if they can prove that import tariffs show “significant risks to US employment”.
“We are deeply concerned that many small companies, even if it only takes weeks or months to achieve agreements, have irreparable damage,” Clark wrote in the letter sent late Wednesday, the finance minister Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
“The chamber requests that the administration take immediate measures to save America's small companies and ward off a recession,” she wrote.
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In an interview on Thursday morning about CNBCs “Squawk on the Street” Clark said that she wrote the White House because “we were just flooded by small corporate inquiries for information”.
These business owners are “afraid of the survival of their business,” she said.
Clark also explained why the chamber decided not to question Trump's tariffs in court -like others -even though their group had sued the Biden administration more than 20 times.
“We are worried about the over -control of the government” and “microragement”, she said. “But in this case the dishes last a long time. And what small companies that need all business needs is an immediate relief.”
When asked whether the Trump administration is considering the application of the Chamber for tariff exceptions, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, did not the case.
“The relief for small companies will come in the form of the largest tax reduction in American history,” he said, referring to the Republican plan to say goodbye to an important tax cut this year.
Miller also said that President Donald Trump “made it clear” that companies that invest in the United States will have no liability from tariffs.
Miller pushed too clear that he rejected the idea of short-term tariff simplification for small companies, and said: “It is a yes for tax relief for small companies. Here, too, they only pay the tariff for products that are manufactured outside the United States.”
Read the full letter here.
– Eamon Javers from CNBC contributed to this report.
Correction: Stephen Miller is deputy chief of staff of the White House. An earlier version wrote his name wrote.
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