Almost a year has passed since the United States imposed a tariff upon consumer tyres imported from China. This tariff, which in its first 12 months added 35 per cent to the existing four per cent import duty, has been applauded in some quarters. United Steelworkers international president Leo W. Gerard, for example, stated in an April 2010 letter to US President Obama that “the domestic industry is, in fact, continuing to make good progress in recovering from the near fatal blow caused by the market disruption from a surge in Chinese consumer tyre imports.” Yet such opinions are not universal. As the tariff’s first anniversary approaches, the US-China Business Council (USCBC) has also drafted its own letter to the President, in which it states it “has found no evidence that the tariffs on low-end Chinese tyres have had a positive effect on American jobs, and we suspect the tariffs have had an overall negative economic impact on American consumers.”