Some are hopeful the new management in Washington will be able to lift barriers to overseas firearm imports erected over the years, though the going could be slow.
President Donald Trump on Friday said it was “very early” to tell if the United States should lift sanctions on Russia, but that he seeks a “great relationship” with Putin and Russia.
On the campaign trail, Trump’s platform on trade concentrated on American jobs while floating the possibility of a tariff on all imported goods to help ease the current trade deficit. However, the Republican’s position on gun rights promised to curtail federal gun bans and limits. The two concepts, when balanced against one another, leaves open the possibility of action on foreign-made guns currently off-limits to buyers in the U.S.
“Together with our partner — Fime Group, we are working hard on extending our export products line regardless of the administrations,” Maksim Yakovlev, a representative for the Russian firm of Molot-Oruzhie, told Guns.com.
Besides newly manufactured guns, surplus firearms have also been marked off limits by past presidents. Nearly a million U.S.-made M1 Garands and carbines given to the South Korean government in the 1950s and 60s as military aid were acquired by a Vermont-based importer — Century Arms International — in 2009 only to be blocked by the Obama administration. In 2014, after six years of campaigning to bring the vintage guns in, CAI laid off 41 employees citing the collapsed deal.
While Republican lawmakers attempted to overturn the blockade on the Korean guns, lawmakers across the aisle sought to further tighten gun imports.
1/27/17 | by Chris Eger
http://www.guns.com/2017/01/27/could-trump-administration-raise-floodgates-on-gun-imports/
