WASHINGTON, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Imposing additional tariffs on Christmas trees and ornaments imported from China would make celebrating Christmas less affordable for U.S. families and harm the cherished U.S. tradition, several business representatives said Friday.
"Increasing the cost of celebrating Christmas for American families will disproportionally impact consumers in the United States," Douglas Lauer, president and CEO of San Francisco-based ornament store Old World Christmas, said at the ongoing public hearings while testifying before the Section 301 Committee under the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
The hearings, held in the U.S. International Trade Commission building, kicked off Monday and will last till June 25.
Lauer is among hundreds of witnesses representing a variety of industries to oppose the proposed additional tariffs of 25 percent on roughly 300 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports.
Citing a survey from the National Retail Federation, Lauer said the average U.S. family spends under 60 dollars per consumer on holiday decorations annually.
"We consistently hear from our customers that holiday budgets are tight, and we expect that trend to continue in 2019," Heather Shepardson, CEO of seasonal and holiday company Rauch Industries, Inc., said in her testimony.
About three quarters of imported glass Christmas ornaments come from China, Shepardson said. "No other country has the capacity to manufacture the broad array of ornaments currently made in China and certainly not at the price points that most Americans can and are willing to accept."
For Thomas Harman, founder and CEO of privately-held Balsam Brands, the company's products of concern are pre-lit artificial Christmas trees, which require labor-intensive production and are "almost exclusively made in China."
"There is no viable alternative supplier," Harman said.
"Imposing tariffs on artificial Christmas trees could be poorly received by American consumers given the importance of the Christmas tree in holiday celebrations and traditions," he said, noting that more than 95 million U.S. households display a Christmas tree, and four out of five do so with an artificial Christmas tree.
The tariffs will result in higher product costs for U.S. consumers and harm the Christmas tradition, he said.
Noting that glass Christmas ornaments often have a zero-rate duty, Shepardson said a tariff up to 25 percent is "unfathomable for me and my colleagues in our industry," most of which are also small businesses.
"A duty of up to 25 percent on these imports would hit these smaller retailers the hardest, as they are less able to absorb such a tariff and often operate with smaller margins," she said.
Harman said the proposed tariffs will cause disproportionate economic harm to his company, which is "a successful, small U.S. business," and "threaten over 100 well-paying jobs."
