Campaigning by publishers and industry groups has led ten American senators from both sides of politics to back a bill to suspend newsprint tariffs.

Republican Susan Collins and independent and Angus King have introducved the Protecting Rational Incentives in Newsprint Trade Act of 2018 (or PRINT Act), with senators Roy Blunt, Shelley Moore Capito, Deb Fischer, Johnny Isakson, Doug Jones, Claire McCaskill, Jerry Moran and Roger Wicker joining as original co-sponsors.

The Act would suspend new tariffs currently being imposed on imported uncoated groundwood paper from Canada, which is the primary source of newsprint and other paper used by domestic newspapers, book publishers and commercial printers.

Simultaneously, the legislation would require the US Department of Commerce to review the economic health of the printing and publishing industries. Newspapers and printers across the country have told Congress that the new import tariffs - as high as 32 per cent - would jeopardise viability of the industry and threaten to decimate the US paper industry's customer base.

Many local newspapers and printers that use uncoated groundwood paper have experienced price increases and a disruption in supply since preliminary countervailing and antidumping duties were assessed earlier this year. Collection is causing "immediate economic harm" to printers and publishers, the US News Media Alliance says. A final Commerce Department decision is expected on August 2.

The new PRINT Act legislation would pause both the preliminary and any final duties while the department completes its study.

Senator Collins, who represents leading papermaking states, accused one domestic mill of taking advantage of trade remedies to add to its own bottom line, "putting thousands of American jobs at risk".

Senator King spoke of the small town newspapers throughout Maine which remained a principal source of information. "New tariffs on uncoated groundwood paper could jeopardise this and impact "hundreds of thousands of American jobs" in the US newspaper business and paper manufacturing industry, "already operating on razor-thin margins".

The bill has been applauded by industry representatives and members of the Stop Tariffs on Printers and Publishers (STOPP) coalition including including NMA president and chief executive David Chavern, Lancaster News publisher and NAA president Susan Rowell, PIA president Michael Makin, ASNE president Alfredo Carbajal, Book Manufacturers' president Jim Fetherston, President, Book Manufacturers' Institute, Association for Print Technologies government affairs vice president Mark Nuzzaco, Southern Newspaper Publishers Association president Patrick Dorsey (who is publisher of Herald-Tribune Media Group and regional vice president of GateHouse Media's Coastal Group),

The ITC's final investigation includes a public hearing on July 17, with a final determination set for mid-September.