Business View Magazine | February 2019

237 President put forward was on solar panels and washing machines. That didn’t impact us quite as much because it’s a very narrow focus. Then we had the steel and aluminum duties – what we call 232 duties - and those became somewhat disruptive for people in our indus- try. Whether we agree with them or not, we still have to assist our clients in making sure that their imports are compliant. Before the 232 duties on steel and aluminum, goods were coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico, duty-free, under the provisions of NAFTA. All of a sudden, we now have 10 or 25 percent duties on steel and aluminum coming in from Canada and Mexico. So, you can imagine that that was difficult for us to educate our clients on the most expeditious and safest way to pay these duties to the government. “And then, just as we were adjusting to that with systems in place, including software upgrades and the capability to trans- mit this additional information to Customs, because they needed additional data in order to collect the information on these duties, we had the 301 duties on goods from China. And, there again, goods that had had a lower rate of duty, suddenly were subject to a 25 percent duty. To suddenly be confronted with having to pay a 25 percent duty rate when your contracts had been negotiated, prices fixed, and budgets planned – to have to deal with this additional duty amount created a hardship for a lot of our companies. They needed counseling from us about any possible ways for this duty to be mitigated: Can they file for an exemption and not pay it? Can they source from another country? Can they manufacture the product in a different way? All of those questions have been percolating up from our clients and it’s been taxing for everybody, and a lot of people needed help around that.” BVM: Any final thoughts about the Associa- tion? Montgomery: “We have 12 staff plus volun- teers, and I have never seen more dedicated and selfless volunteers who link arms and work together for the betterment of the in- dustry. Our members are the unsung heroes of international trade, and we could not keep the borders flowing without expert brokers and forwarders. We feel that we have a lot to offer and according to our last study, our retention rate was about 93 percent. So, we feel that when folks join us to make our Association and industry stronger, they feel that they get good value for their money.” Magnus: “Don’t consider importing or export- ing without having a member of NCBFAA on your side.”