on tires imported from China that would increase the price by 35 percent in its first year, 30 percent in its

second year, and 25 percent in its third year. Interestingly, the U.S. companies that make tires did not favor this

step, because most of them also import tires from China and other countries. (See Globalization and

Protectionism for more on tariffs.) However, the United Steelworkers union, which had seen jobs in the tire

Access for free at openstax.org
18.2 • Special Interest Politics 439

industry fall by 5,000 over the previous five years, lobbied fiercely for the tariff. With this tariff, the cost of all

tires increased significantly. (See the closing Bring It Home feature at the end of this chapter for more

information on the tire tariff.)

Special interest groups are groups that are small in number relative to the nation, but quite well organized

and focused on a specific issue. A special interest group can pressure legislators to enact public policies that
{"source_file": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "producer": "Prince 14.2 (www.princexml.com)", "title": "Principles of Microeconomics 3e", "file_size_mb": 26.99, "upload_timestamp": "2026-02-07T15:24:38.309401", "batch_upload": true, "source": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "uploaded_via": "batch_uploader", "creationdate": "2022-12-07T14:15:44-06:00", "creator": "PDFMiner", "file_type": ".pdf", "file_name": "Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_hash": "830b81f41611ac67a490444dbb5d6aed292224606965b06965b914443c93331a", "total_pages": 597, "moddate": "2022-12-07T14:23:05-06:00"}