Marie Hodge Gordon

Press Secretary

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today applauded the reversal of harmful tariffs on imported newsprint and other commercial printing papers used by small-town newspapers in Georgia and around the country. Isakson had testified last month before the International Trade Commission in its formal hearing to consider the effects of these tariffs.

“Today’s news is a victory for the First Amendment, for Georgians, and for all Americans. Georgia’s community newspapers were already feeling the squeeze from technology, but the manipulation of trade remedies was an unnecessary hardship thrust upon our local papers, the commercial printing industry, and the overall U.S. paper manufacturing industry,” said Isakson. “Today’s action will provide welcome relief, help keep people and communities informed about relevant news in their communities, and end the threat to hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industry.”

In a unanimous vote today, the International Trade Commission reversed a final decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce that had imposed tariffs on uncoated groundwood paper from Canada.

Isakson has long fought these harmful tariffs on Georgia’s newspapers and printing industry. On July 17, Isakson argued against these tariffs in testimony at a formal hearing of the International Trade Commission focused on the effects of tariffs on uncoated groundwood paper.

In January, Isakson led a bipartisan coalition of senators in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, arguing the tariffs would pose a threat to nearly 1,000 jobs in Georgia and 600,000 jobs in the publishing and commercial printing sector nationwide, especially in rural areas.

In May, Isakson joined a bipartisan group of his Senate colleagues in introducing the Protecting Rational Incentives in Newsprint Trade Act of 2018, or PRINT Act for short, which would suspend the import taxes on uncoated groundwood paper while the U.S. Department of Commerce examined the health of—and the effect of tariffs on—the printing and publishing industry.