Free Trade Zone (FTZ) 104 and the Trump Tariffs: Impacts, mitigation, and District 1 strategy

Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZ) 104, located in Savannah, is a growing hub for international trade on the East Coast and offers duty deferral, reduced tariff rates, and streamlined customs processes. With Executive Order 14257, April 2, 2025), Trump declared a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose reciprocal tariffs on countries with non-reciprocal trade practices. This is an America-first policy designed to deal with vulnerable supply chains exposed during the Pandemic, protect strategic infant industries and national-security-significant production, close gaps in trade deficits, and bring manufacturing jobs back to America. As such, I support it.

However, Eugene Yu wants to mitigate the impact of higher tariffs and duties on FTZ 104 and the 1st District. The requirement for Privilege Foreign status in FTZs from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs executive order significantly reduces the flexibility that FTZ 104 offers. Normally, FTZ users can process or manufacture goods within the zone to qualify for lower tariff rates or avoid duties on re-exported goods. Under Privileged Foreign status, goods like electronics or machinery entering FTZ 104 from China (subject to 145% tariffs) or other targeted countries retain their high duty rates, even after processing as intermediate goods.

Tariffs on imports from China, Canada, Mexico, and others increase costs for suppliers in industries like aerospace, electronics, and logistics, impacting FTZ 104 users. This could lead to price increases for consumers or reduced competitiveness for FTZ users. Retaliatory tariffs from China, Canada, and others hurt FTZ 104 exporters, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing.

As tariffs raise import costs, companies are increasingly using FTZs to defer duties, with a reported surge in interest in FTZ storage space. FTZ 104 may see higher demand for warehousing as businesses stockpile goods to delay tariff payments or await trade negotiations that could lower rates. This could strain FTZ 104’s capacity but also boost its economic role in Savannah.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act allows 100% immediate deduction for certain depreciable property, including assets used in FTZs. This could incentivize firms to invest in warehousing or manufacturing facilities in FTZ 104. Eugene Yu think this does not go far enough. He wants to see more subsidized infrastructure investment in FTZ 104 for improving the warehousing, storage, and manufacturing facilities. He wants this to happen before dramatic supply chains shift to substitutes and business is lost for the 1st District.

Eugene Yu also wants to propose expanded access to the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, administered by the Department of Commerce, for small and medium-sized suppliers in FTZ 104 impacted by tariffs or retaliatory trade barriers (e.g., China’s 125% tariffs). This could include technical assistance, loans, or grants to help firms diversify supply chains or markets. Trade Adjustment Assistance can help local manufacturers and farmers adapt by funding new sourcing strategies or market expansion that are not disruptive, preserving jobs in District 1. American jobs and the American middle class cannot be sacrificed on the altar of foreign trade policy as the game theory of one-upsmanship works its way out in multilateral efforts to demonstrate threat credibility in current and potential future trade wars.

Eugene Yu has been involved on the ground in some of the foreign direct investment that has come to Georgia from Korea. Eugene Yu wants to see this pattern, including vibrant greenfield investment, come to the Brunswick/Glynn County area. Brunswick and Glynn County have a lot to offer employers, for suppliers, manufacturers, and professional services firms.

For suppliers, there is access to a rapidly-growing port, still with tremendous growth potential. For manufacturers, there is affordable property suitable for industrial activity throughout Glynn, much of it with rail and highway frontage. For the professional services industry, there are reasonable lease rates in downtown Brunswick.

While some have expressed concerns about the availability of a skilled workforce in the area, the greater Glynn County area could pull from a workforce of over 500,000 workers within a 50-mile radius. Others have expressed concerns about housing prices and shortages. However, there has been an influx of national and regional homebuilders in the area, including near Highway 99. Eugene Yu will do what it takes to bring job-creating economic development opportunities to Brunswick and Glynn County.

Eugene Yu is a proud Veteran of the United States Army. As American Veterans have borne the battle, Eugene Yu believes America’s commitment to our Veterans should be as deep and wide as the oceans they have crossed to fight for this great country. To fulfill that sacred commitment, Eugene Yu believes in supporting Veterans’ services and that cutbacks to those services in the name of fiscal responsibility are misplaced.

There is nothing worthy of the term “responsibility” that involves reducing America’s investment in Veterans’ care. First and foremost, Eugene Yu believes that providing world-class care to the Veterans’ community and meeting their complex, multi-faceted, medical and psychosocial needs fundamentally requires access to timely and safe care.

Eugene Yu supports an all-of-the-above strategy of supporting Veterans Health Administration (VHA) access points where they are performing satisfactorily, but also giving Veterans the choice to receive expanded community care where the VHA is falling short. This means the VHA must also prove competent in its mission of providing administration for community care access. Eugene Yu plans to support an extensive audit of the VHA’s support for community care to determine if payments are being made appropriately and timely.

Problems with this process have emerged already. For instance, when an 100% permanently and totally disabled Veteran receives emergent care in a private emergency department, the VHA does not pay the ambulance service for the ride until it has made final approvals for the hospital bill. However, ambulance services often issue bills before the hospital’s billing cycle is complete. This often results in bills to Veterans for their covered ambulance rides. When these go unpaid, ambulance services often send these bills to debt collectors. Veterans are then forced to deal with the resulting financial and/or administrative burdens. This is unacceptable. Eugene Yu will promptly introduce legislation that corrects this and other problems with VA community care.

Additionally, the Veterans community faces a persistent problem with homelessness. Eugene Yu supports efforts to preventively address the social factors that contribute to homelessness. Eugene Yu will support expansion of the Trump administration’s effort to provide resources to non-governmental organizations to help Veterans with financial, legal, and other social problems.

These issues, such as divorce, child support, and building the credit history to qualify for the Veterans Benefits Administration Loan Guaranty service’s home loans are important for establishing and sustaining Veteran home ownership. This effort must involve the Veterans Health Administration, the Veterans Benefits Administration, and established Veteran Services Organizations (VSOs) all working together to lead Veterans out of financial hardship.

Another problem is that the Veterans Benefits Administration’s education programs, including the Veterans Readiness and Employment service (VR&E; formerly referred to as “Vocational Rehabilitation”), often only provide enough financial support for a first qualification, such as a bachelor’s degree. In our current economy, a bachelor’s degree is often no longer a competitive qualification for many career fields.

For qualified and capable Veterans, these programs should provide graduate-level education, up to and including terminal degrees in various job-ready technical disciplines that are critical for an advanced 21st Century economy. These Veterans led the fight in combat against America’s enemies in the Global War on Terror, and now should lead the fight against America’s near-peer competitors in the technological and economic rivalries we currently face.

Eugene Yu wants the people of Georgia’s 1st District to have the best healthcare anywhere. Eugene Yu wants to be the Healthcare Congressman. While there are strong, thriving health systems in Savannah and Brunswick, many of the rural areas in the 1st District are underserved areas threatened with lack of access to care.

Barack Obama’s PPACA (“Obamacare”) had a deleterious effect on rural healthcare. Overall, the heavy regulatory hand of the PPACA resulted in higher premiums, intensifying fiscal pressures on Medicaid programs, employers cutting full-time jobs, and lower compensation for some healthcare workers. To the extent that any resulting healthcare workforce shortages were felt, they are have been most acute in smaller communities.

Of the 1st District counties of Appling, Bacon, Brantley, Bryan, Camden, Charlton, Chatham, Effingham, Glynn, Liberty, Long, McIntosh, Pierce, Ware, and Wayne, all except Bryan and Glynn contain or are primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HSPAs).

Rural emergency management, especially in response to exogenous shocks such as disasters or hospital closings, is especially vulnerable due to funding and other resource shortages, substandard infrastructure, low population density (high dispersion), high concentrations of elderly/disabled, and lack of coordination by local authorities as well as lack of commitment by federal and state authorities. This is all a tangle.

Thus far, there have been few obvious and straightforward ways to overcome the persistent disparities in health outcomes. One solution is training first responders to become advanced practice paramedics. As a double 1st responder (sheriff’s deputy + fireman), Eugene believes in the power and importance of 1st responders.

Essentially, the concept is to train rural paramedics to have skill sets comparable to mid-level practitioners, such as physician’s assistants or nurse practitioners (though not quite the full scope of practice for these mid-levels, who have experienced mission creep due to pervasive and persistent primary care provider shortages), or advanced practice nurses, such as certified registered nurse anesthetists.

These advanced practice paramedics are more like mobile primary care providers, and can treat less acute patients at home to avoid hospital overcrowding. They have prescribing authority for a much broader range of medications than a paramedic would have. Furthermore, wouldn’t you want the person who comes to your home to provide life-saving care in serious emergencies to have the absolute best training anywhere in the world? Eugene Yu will introduce legislation to make this a reality.

Eugene Yu believes in building for the future. That includes recognizing the importance of secure infrastructure and building a robust commons for everyone. Shared infrastructure and common spaces are the wealth of a nation and its people.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) most recent Report Card for America’s Infrastructure graded the nation’s overall infrastructure a C. That is an improvement over previous years, but much more work needs to be done.

This includes expanding rural broadband, improving privately-owned roads and bridges that are not part of the ASCE’s survey, securing levees, enhancing diverse transportation systems, replacing legacy infrastructure, cleaning up wastewater services (which is a nationwide problem that is particularly acute in Georgia), and more.

Georgia’s own state infrastructure ranking has performed well, especially in transportation and marine/inland ports. Eugene Yu will continue to support the success of the Georgia Department of Transportation and the Georgia Port Authority from the federal level.

Eugene Yu will support subsidies and tax cuts for the full range of nation builders involved in infrastructure inspection, construction, maintenance, and support services. This is among the most responsible forms of government spending and has a multiplier effect that actually improves the economic and fiscal health of America. These projects have to be more closely managed, though, so that they do not become bridges to nowhere.

Eugene Yu looks forward to his oversight role, and will work hard to make sure smart investments happen throughout the 1st District, Georgia, and the nation. Eugene Yu will also demand greater support for infant industries, such as biotech, and strategic industrial sectors, to include semiconductor design and manufacturing, and for the essential infrastructure in rail and water transport to support economic growth.

Eugene Yu is also committed to confronting China’s massive industrial espionage machines and protecting American innovation and cutting-edge technical trade secrets and other proprietary information, especially for dual-use technologies.

Eugene Yu will be a cyberwarrior for the American people. He wants to confront America’s cyber enemies by empowering America’s private and non-profit sectors to commit cross-domain responses to cyberattacks, including improving tools for recovering awards in lawsuits against malicious actors, and share cyber threat intelligence information, modeled on the best practices of the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers.

Eugene Yu also wants to help grow the size of America’s public and private cybersecurity workforce, close the skills gap, and lead the world in innovative security research and development. Eugene Yu wants to use federal support to bring the high-quality cybersecurity education at fine institutions like Georgia Tech to the colleges and universities in the 1st District.

Eugene Yu wants to support a rich private cryptocurrency ecosystem, where leading innovations have come from, not central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which may present the unacceptable threat of creating a cashless society. He wants to attract major cryptocurrency conferences and businesses to Georgia. Eugene Yu additionally wants to direct some federal resources to growing crypto- and blockchain-based small businesses in the 1st District.

Eugene Yu also demands greater protections for Georgia citizens against the collection and sale of third party data, including location data, by data brokers, to include additional restrictions on the sale of such data to state and federal government agencies.

While Eugene Yu supports law enforcement having criminal intelligence tooling and information, he believes law enforcement agencies and officers are perfectly capable of fighting crime utilizing old-fashioned shoe leather and hard work, and wants American citizens to enjoy the implied privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment.