Trade war with China is damaging American Christians. Gutenberg was able to print a Bible,
*but, well, to be honest, we went broke, too, just like American publishers will if they're
denied the advantage of the China Price for the word of God.
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/Section_301_Hearing_Transcript_on_Proposed_Tariffs_Day_2.pdf
MR. BURCH: Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.
6 Our next panel witness will be Mark Schoenwald of
7 Harper Collins Christian Publishing. Mr.
8 Schoenwald, you have five minutes.
9 MR. SCHOENWALD: Good morning, Mr.
10 Chairman, and Members of the Section 301
11 Committee. Thank you for allowing me to speak to
12 you today.
13 My name is Mark Schoenwald and I'm the
14 President and Chief Executive Officer of Harper
15 Collins Christian Publishing, a leading Christian
16 book and bible publisher.
17 HCCP, as we're known as, has roughly
18 500 employees located primarily in Nashville,
19 Tennessee and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
20 It is a parent company of the two
21 largest Christian book and bible publishers in
22 the U.S., Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, and
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
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1 operates with a mission to provide books and
2 promote biblical principles and honor Jesus
3 Christ.
4 I'm here with the specific request
5 today that the proposed Section 301 tariff,
6 Subheading 4901.99.00, for books, which includes
7 4901.99.00.40 for bibles, testaments, prayer
8 books, and other religious books, be removed from
9 the list of products from China to be subject to
10 a 25 percent tariff as proposed in the May 17th
11 announcement from USTR, Section 301, Docket
12 Number USTR-2019-0004.
13 Historically, books of all kinds have
14 received treatment different from that afforded
15 to other forms of manufactured goods.
16 For example, their content is largely
17 exempt from any kind of government regulation,
18 whether they be novels, children's books, or any
19 other form of writing.
20 And bibles, along with other sacred
21 scriptures, are especially protected from
22 government interference.
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1 In addition, because of the special
2 role of books in spreading knowledge and insight
3 within our society, books are frequently exempt
4 from taxation by local authorities.
5 Our government has long recognized
6 that a wide and unhampered circulation of
7 knowledge and religious thought is a fundamental
8 characteristics of the United States. The
9 printing of bibles is also unique.
10 Because of the specialized printing
11 requirements and because of the expense of their
12 printing, U.S. printers moved their bible
13 printing facilities abroad decades ago, leaving
14 no substantial domestic manufacturing
15 alternatives.
(((Just try to make a Bible in the USA... next to impossible.)))
16 One of the unique characteristics of
17 the bible is its size. There are over 800,000
18 words in a bible, about 10 times the size of an
19 ordinary book.
20 Now, because of this, bibles are
21 printed on unusually thin paper that cannot be
22 fed into standard printing equipment and must be
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1 handled by specialized machines.
2 Bible covers too are frequently non
3 standard, often made of leather or other durable
4 materials, stamped and embossed, designed so that
5 the bible can lay open despite their size, and
6 specially stitched to handle the weight.
7 And many bibles have decorative end
8 papers and ribbon page markers. All these add up
9 to substantially greater manufacturing costs that
10 would be incurred of a production of an ordinary
11 book.
12 As a result of these requirements,
13 along with the other processes used for the
14 manufacture of children's books, which you just
15 heard about, of which HCCP is a leading Christian
16 publisher and four-color books, the printing
17 industry has segmented.
18 Much of the single-color trade book
19 manufacturing continues to be done domestically
20 where U.S. plants are highly competitive, while
21 more expensive formats and color printing has
22 largely shifted overseas, especially to China.
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1 Close to 75 percent of HCCP's bible
2 manufacturing expenses are incurred in China so
3 the effect of a tariff will be widely felt among
4 purchases of the bible.
5 In some cases, the resulting price
6 increase will be so high that we will need to
7 discontinue editions with features that bible
8 consumers value the most and have come to expect.
9 Many of these bible purchases are
10 churches, nonprofit organizations, ministries and
11 schools, and other organizations that seek to
12 study and spread the word of God.
13 Outreach efforts of these
14 organizations will inevitably be affected by the
15 cost increase imposed by these proposed tariffs.
16 We believe the Administration was
17 unaware of the potential negative impact these
18 proposed tariffs would have on bibles and that it
19 never intended to oppose, quote, a bible tax,
20 unquote, on consumers and religious
21 organizations. ((("Bible Tax.")))
22 However, if printed books including
1 bibles are not removed from the fourth list of
2 products from China to be subject to tariffs,
3 when tariffs go into effect, consumers and
4 religious organizations will face higher prices.
5 And churches, schools, ministries, and
6 nonprofit organizations will have fewer resources
7 to educate others and connect them with the Holy
8 Bible.
9 Thank you.
