More US tariffs? China's 'Furniture Kingdom' says it's already moved on

As part of his latest tariff onslaught, U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a 50% levy on imported kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, as well as a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture, to take effect on October 1.

But in one of dozens of malls along the strip in southern China, Feng Junyuan, a sales manager at Hansen Outdoor Furniture, which makes upholstered chairs, said her company had already reduced its reliance on the once lucrative U.S. market.

ALTERNATIVE MARKETS AND WEAK DOMESTIC DEMAND

"We haven’t really bothered with the U.S. market since last November when it was clear the tariffs were coming in. No one visits us from there, and we don't try to sell. It's just too expensive," she told Reuters.

Lecong, like other factory towns in China's "workshop of the world" in the Pearl River Delta with large manufacturing clusters, features more than 180 furniture malls crammed with retailers, wholesalers and distributors selling products from plywood tables to plush leather sofas.

According to the website of Lecong's Chamber of Commerce, the town became the earliest furniture market in China more than 30 years ago, when it catered to international customers including those in the more lucrative and higher margin European and North American markets.

In recent years, however, geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and rising labour and production costs have hurt Chinese manufacturers who have had to adapt to survive. The domestic Chinese market, meanwhile, has also been hurt by weak consumption amid an economic downturn and property market slump.

Feng has downsized her workforce to 10-20 workers, around a quarter of its peak. She now sells around 60% of her products domestically and 40% overseas, mostly India and Africa.

Jin Yun, the boss of Hanfei Furniture, a mid- to high-end sofa maker in a mall featuring slogans like "your one-stop home furniture partner", said business this year had been average, with most of his clients in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

"Last year’s tariff increase had a big impact. We still had two American customers at that time, but they ended up cancelling an order when the tariffs came and there was no sale," he told Reuters.

"There's a lot of problems for manufacturers in every industry, not just furniture. The market is smaller and there’s a lot of competition, but we'll survive."

TRUMP VOWS TO REBUILD US FURNITURE BUSINESS

The latest tariffs come after Trump promised in August to help "bring the Furniture Business back" to North Carolina, South Carolina and Michigan.

Furniture and wood products manufacturing employment in the U.S. has halved since 2000 to around 340,000 today, according to government statistics.

Trump has made tariffs a core policy of his second term, with sweeping duties levied on dozens of trading partners including China and Vietnam - two major furniture makers - that have then been sometimes adjusted amid a flurry of negotiations.

"It's not that we don't sell to America, we'd be happy to," said Ling, a sales manager who was sat in her nearly deserted showroom scrolling on her phone.

"It's just I haven't seen an American customer here since the pandemic."