AAFA Supported Coalitions

Ad Hoc Coalition on Footwear Textile Outsole Issue
The coalition opposes current efforts by U.S. Customs to overturn the long accepted practice of allowing lower duties on U.S. imports of fabric upper/rubber bottomed footwear that have fabric imbedded or otherwise permanently attached to the sole of the shoe.  Over 200 million pairs of shoes, or almost ten percent of all shoes sold in the United States, use this application.  If Customs overturns the current practice and reclassifies these shoes, the U.S. footwear industry could pay an additional $200 million a year in higher duties annually. Hardworking American families, in turn, could be forced to pay an additional $500 million in the form of higher prices on the typically lower-priced and children's shoes that use this application.  The coalition is lobbying Customs, Congress and the administration to prevent Customs from reversing current policy.

Ad Hoc Andean Coalition
The Ad Hoc Andean Coalition is made up of members on the entire textile and apparel supply chain including, manufacturers, retailers and textile associations, who support the Andean trade partnership, through the trade preference program and the free trade agreement. 

Ad Hoc Issues Coalition with RILA, NRF and USA-ITA
Coalition of organizations that lobby on issues affecting U.S. apparel firms, brands and retailers.

Ad Hoc Coalition on First Sale
This coalition was created in response to the Customs and Boarder Protection’s proposal to overturn the “first sale” rules for imported goods.  The coalition strongly opposes any move to do away with the valuation system.

Affordable Footwear Act Coalition
The Affordable Footwear Act Coalition is a group of organizations lobbying Congress to eliminate the regressive import duties – aka the unfair “shoe tax” -- on lower to moderately priced footwear and children’s shoes. These shoes are no longer manufactured in the United States, yet imports of these shoes – shoes predominantly bought by hardworking lower and middle-income American families -- are subject to some of the highest duties in the U.S. tariff code.  Eliminating these import tariffs would result in lower prices on footwear, something we all purchase.

Alliance to Keep US Jobs
We are now part of something called the Alliance to Keep US Jobs.  This coalition has been formed to raise awareness to the U.S./Mexican trucking dispute under NAFTA.  Coalition members are fighting to keep cross border trucking initiatives intact, thus eliminating retaliatory sanctions imposed on U.S. exports to Mexico.

American Coalition for Fair Trade Rules (ACFTR)
The American Coalition for Fair Trade Rules (ACFTR) is a cross-sectoral coalition of U.S. farm, manufacturing and retail business enterprises that are seeking to ensure that international rules on trade remedies (for example, antidumping and countervailing duties, and safeguards) and the U.S. and foreign laws that implement them are balanced and compatible with a modern and globally competitive U.S. economy and do not impose unreasonable or unfair barriers or costs on U.S. agricultural and manufacturing exporters and importers.

Apparel Trade Remedies Action Coalition (ATRAC)
Ad hoc group of associations and companies formed to prevent quotas and trade remedies from being applied to clothing trade.

Berry/DHS Coalition
The Berry/DHS Coalition is a coalition of associations and companies lobbying for legislation that would require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to purchase only U.S.-made apparel and shoes for its workers.

China Business Coalition
An ad hoc coalition of U.S. businesses and organizations advocating a rational and constructive approach to U.S.-China relations with Congress and the Executive Branch.

Coalition Against Counterfeiting & Piracy (CACP)
The Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (CACP) is committed to increasing the understanding of the negative impact of counterfeiting and piracy on the U.S. economy and U.S. businesses by working with Congress and the administration to drive greater government-wide efforts to address this threat.

Coalition for a Democratic Workforce (CDW)
The CDW is a coalition of workers, employers, associations and organizations who are fighting to protect the right to a federally supervised private ballot when workers are deciding whether or not to join a union.

Coalition for Generalized Systems of Preferences (GSP)
The Coalition for GSP is a Washington, DC-based group of businesses, trade associations, and consumer organizations that seeks the renewal of the GSP program by Congress each time it expires. Since 1992, the Coalition has been the predominant U.S. business community voice advocating GSP renewal.

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Coalition
The CPSC Coalition is a coalition of U.S. businesses advocating for the U.S. government to take a rational, reasonable, and scientific-based approach to regulations affecting consumer products, including apparel and footwear.

Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC)
The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) is a Washington, DC-based trade organization with one primary objective: to ensure that consuming industries and manufacturers in America have access to reliable supplies of globally-priced materials necessary for those industries to produce their products.

Customs and Border Coalition (CBC)
The CBC represents a large swath of the U.S. manufacturing and importing community that is working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on a number of pending issues, such as 10+2 and rule of origin changes.

FAAAA Shippers Coalition
This group includes importers, exporters, truckers and other business groups directly involved in international movement of goods.  The coalition seeks to preserve long-standing federal law, which holds that all regulation of interstate and international trucking remain under the jurisdiction of the federal government.  Currently, there are efforts underway within the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (F4A or FAAAA) to amend this law to grant local entities, such as port authorities and even city, county and state governments, more control over trucking rules.

Federal Prison Industries (FPI) Competition in Contracting Coalition
The FPI Coalition is a coalition of U.S. manufacturers advocating for Congress to require FPI to compete for U.S. government contracts with the private sector by removing FPI’s “mandatory source” requirement for government agencies and mandating that FPI be subject to the same contract requirements as all other contract bidders.

Lacey Act Coalition
A U.S. business community coalition formed to ensure that the U.S. government's implementation of the recent amendments to the Lacey Act are applied in a transparent, predictable manner that focuses scarce resources on the amendment's intended goal -- stopping illegal logging -- while not arbitrarily impeding trade.

Latin America Trade Coalition
The Latin America Trade Coalition is a broad-based group of U.S. companies and business organizations that are working to secure Congressional approval of pending Latin America free trade agreements.

LIFO (Last-In, First-Out) Coalition
The threat of repeal of the LIFO (last-in, first-out) inventory valuation method by Congress continues to loom with substantial tax consequences for manufacturers, retailers, and wholesaler-distributors who are on LIFO.  The LIFO Coalition, an ad hoc group of more than 70 trade associations, business organizations and advocacy groups representing hundreds of thousands of separate businesses, is fighting against any proposed repeal of LIFO.

Middle East Free Trade Area Coalition (MEFTA)
The US-Middle East Free Trade Coalition, supported by the U.S. business community, has four primary objectives: 1) supporting the negotiation and conclusion of commercially meaningful free trade agreements between the United States and governments in the Middle East region; 2) providing unified and overarching US business leadership and commitment to the MEFTA vision; 3) establishing an umbrella business group to oversee and focus on the key components of MEFTA through a range of educational, advocacy, outreach, and other activities; and 4) providing an efficient, broad-based business mechanism and steady pool of corporate chairs to lead future bilateral FTA business coalition efforts.

Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Coalition (MTB)
The MTB Coalition is a coalition of businesses advocating with Congress to ensure that U.S. industries and manufacturers have duty-free access to imported inputs (used in U.S. manufacturing) and products that are no longer available in the United States.

Protect America’s Competitive Edge (PACE) Coalition
The PACE coalition seeks to defend and expand the more than 63 million American jobs that depend on international competitiveness of American-owned multinational companies. The ability of these companies to stem job losses in the United States and eventually return to hiring more American workers at home depends on the health and vitality of their worldwide operations. To ensure American competitiveness, PACE advocates that the United States maintain a level playing field for taxation of international operations and not promote policies that would disadvantage U.S. companies.

Small Business Access to Credit Coalition
As small businesses work hard to survive the recent economic downturn, this coalition seeks remedies from the federal government to provide small businesses more access to credit so that they can continue to grow their businesses, hire more employees and encourage more capital investment.  

START OVER!
A coalition of business associations, which has come together to defeat the House and Senate health care reform bills in order to force Congress and the Administration to Start Over! and get health care reform right.

Tax Relief Coalition
The Tax Relief Coalition represents thousands of U.S. businesses and associations, both large and small, advocating for passage of commonsense tax relief initiatives.

Trade for America
A coalition of businesses and trade associations, including several representing apparel importers and retailers, on February 12, 2007 launched Trade for America, an umbrella group that will push for an ambitious trade agenda.

Trade Preferences Working Group
This coalition includes business groups and non-governmental organizations that have been working to rationalize, simplify, and harmonize trade preferences for developing countries, including least developed countries.

U.S.-Korea FTA Business Coalition
The U.S.-Korea FTA Business Coalition is a broad-based group of over 100 leading U.S. companies and trade associations that strongly support the conclusion and passage of a free trade agreement between the United States and the Republic of Korea.  The Coalition will work to ensure the negotiation of a comprehensive and commercially viable FTA with Korea that advances the interests of the U.S. business community and promotes further bilateral trade and investment.

Waterfront Coalition
The Waterfront Coalition is made up of businesses involved in the transportation supply chain.  The purpose of the coalition is to promote efficient, safe and technologically advanced ports and to educate the public on the importance of U.S. ports and foreign trade.