Congress is one step closer to reinstating duty-free access for Ecuadorian roses.
Last week the U.S. Senate passed S. 1260, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, which reauthorizes the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). The wide-ranging bill, which passed 68-32, seeks to boost U.S. competitiveness vis-à-vis China via science, technology, and innovation.
SAF has advocated for renewal of GSP since the program expired at the end of 2020. GSP is a trade preference program that allows for duty-free entry into the U.S. for thousands of products from overseas, including cut flowers, which provides pricing stability for the industry. SAF and other industry groups led the effort to add roses to GSP in 2020.
“U.S. wholesalers and importers benefit from the bottom-line relief associated with GSP benefits, most recently as they relate to roses from Ecuador,” says Alice Gomez, SAF lobbyist. “The U.S. floral industry pays an additional $15 million annually without the program in place due to a 6.8 percent tariff on rose imports.”
As previously reported in SAF Now, the Senate bill proposes several changes to the GSP country eligibility criteria, including environmental, labor, and human rights commitments. It is uncertain whether the proposed GSP eligibility criteria would impact Ecuador’s status as a GSP beneficiary country enabling duty-free shipments of fresh cut roses from Ecuador to the United States.
Observers note that the community supporting GSP renewal is not in favor of the Senate-passed changes to eligibility criteria, particularly new areas that touch on digital trade and women’s rights and economic empowerment. “The concern is the language for the new criteria is so vague that it would create unintended consequences and leave countries out of the program that should qualify,” says Gomez.
The legislation now moves to the House of Representatives, where committees of jurisdiction — including the House Ways and Means Committee — will consider relevant bills. According to a report from Politico, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee plan to introduce their own legislation tomorrow to reauthorize GSP, noting that the Senate language didn’t address all of the House’s concerns. The House will work from a bill Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced last December, looking to incorporate some of the changes from the Senate-passed bill but also including even stronger protections for the environment, labor rights and gender equality in participating nations.
The Senate action in passing the bill last week speeds up House action on GSP renewal, but the timeline for House consideration of the bill is still uncertain, according to Gomez. “The bottom line is that the Senate passing GSP reauthorization is a huge first step — but we still have a ways to go,” she says.
Katie Butler is the senior vice president of the Society of American Florists.
