LI exporters worry about trade in the Trump era

President Donald Trump’s talk of increasing taxes on imports has set some local exporters on edge because they said a trade war could break out, with foreign countries raising taxes on U.S. goods.

Since his inauguration, Trump has withdrawn the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, or TPP, and proposed a tax hike on imports from Mexico to pay for a border wall.

He also repeated his campaign pledge to renegotiate the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, for the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The speed and tone of the president’s actions has alarmed exporters on Long Island.

“I’m concerned about how quickly big changes are being made,” said James D’Addario, CEO of D’Addario & Co., a manufacturer of guitar strings and other instrument accessories in East Farmingdale.

He said he appreciates that Trump wants to combat foreign taxes on U.S. exports that make them too expensive, including D’Addario strings.

But the local executive said Trump’s approach is too broad and should focus on counterfeiters and businesses that unfairly swamp the market with cheap goods to undercut competitors.

“I don’t trust this administration to address . . . [import taxes] in a way that isn’t going to create havoc and negative things,” he said.

D’Addario’s company exports to 120 countries and had sales of $168 million last year. It employs 865 people locally.

Trump has wide latitude on trade issues. He can unilaterally take the United States out of NAFTA because it’s an agreement, not a treaty, which requires congressional action, according to an analysis by the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington and London.

The United States hasn’t walked away from a ratified trade deal since 1866, when Congress canceled a treaty with Great Britain for colonial Canada after Britain sympathized with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Veteran shipping executive Thomas A. Cook predicted Trump will try “to renegotiate NAFTA, not eliminate it. . . . We cannot afford to be isolationist.” Cook owns the consulting firm Blue Tiger International and the training provider National Institute forWorld Trade, both based in East Moriches.

He and others said they hope Congress will scuttle some of Trump’s trade proposals. But Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) said, “There is very strong bipartisan support for renegotiating deals that have been entered into previously.”