Under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the U.S. president has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs if it deemed a matter of national security. President Donald Trump this week used that power \u2014 and things escalated rapidly.<\/p>\n
Trump on July 6 imposed tariffs of 25 percent on some $34 billion worth of Chinese imports, citing \u201cunfair trade practices<\/a>.\u201d This is a reference to claims of industrial espionage and intellectual property violations. China immediately retaliated by imposing tariffs on $34 billion in U.S. exports to China. On July 10, Trump\u00a0struck back again<\/a>, imposing tariffs of 10 percent on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports.<\/p>\n Gregg Gorski, general manager of\u00a0Smokebuddy<\/a>, a producer of hand-held personal air filters, says Trump\u2019s move will have a clear impact on his business. \u201cA 25 percent duty on anything that comes from China costs importers that much more,\u201d he told Cannabis Now. \u201cWith Trump\u2019s order, 1,300 items got an extra 25 percent duty.\u201d<\/p>\n And Smokebuddy\u2019s filters, which are produced at a small plant in China\u2019s southern industrial hub of Guangzhou, are among them.<\/p>\n \u201cOur costs went up by 25 percent,\u201d says Gorski. \u201cSo we have to add another 25 percent to our price when we sell to our distributors. So they have to raise the price when they sell to the store, and store has to raise the price when it sells to the end-buyer. We can\u2019t eat the increase because we were already running on a 30 percent margin. So the increase would eat into our bottom line.\u201d<\/p>\n The same principle applies to a wide range of products. \u201cEverything that\u2019s made in China that we consume in U.S. has gone up,\u201d says Gorski. \u201cComputers, cell phones, televisions, construction equipment. It doesn\u2019t just affect us as the importers, it\u2019s affected the entire U.S. economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Smokebuddy has been producing its line of personal filters, designed to eliminate second-hand smoke, for 10 years. \u201cIn 10 years, we\u2019ve never raised our prices,\u201d says Gorski. \u201cNow due to tariffs, we\u2019ve had to raise the price \u2014 but we don\u2019t make any more money. We have to give that extra to the government.\u201d Explaining the logic of using Chinese labor, Gorski echoes the language of globalization: \u201cCosts in the U.S. would have been double that in China. We could have done it here, but that would have left the door open to someone else doing it in China for half the costs.\u201d<\/p>\n He points to vape pens, lighters and butane gas as other cannabis-related products that will be impacted by Trump\u2019s edict.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The hope that Congress will restrain Trump looks slim. On July 11, the Senate\u00a0approved a measure<\/a>\u00a0calling on Trump to consult with Congress on the tariffs by a vote of 88-11. But the measure is non-binding. Faced with the certainty of a Trump veto, Senate Republican leaders\u00a0have not acted<\/a> on a bipartisan bill to impose actual binding limits on Trump\u2019s ability to impose tariffs.<\/p>\n And the same cycle of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs also\u00a0unfolded this week<\/a>\u00a0with Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n China is meanwhile\u00a0attempting to rally opposition<\/a>\u00a0to Trump in the\u00a0World Trade Organization<\/a> \u2014 giving us the unlikely prospect of the Communist Party-ruled country posing as the champion of free trade against a protectionist United States.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> have you felt any effects from Trump\u2019s new tariffs?<\/p>\n The post Trump\u2019s Trade Wars Hit Cannabis Businesses Hard<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the U.S. president has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs if it deemed a matter of national security. President Donald Trump this week used that power \u2014 and things escalated rapidly. Trump on July 6 imposed tariffs of 25 percent on some $34Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,696,83,95,170,4951,4712,4952,4953],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27844,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27843\/revisions\/27844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGorski says the Smokebuddy \u201cserves a purpose for people who want to be discrete with their smoking.\u201d He is based at the company\u2019s Los Angeles office, which employs 12 people, but frequently travels to the Guangzhou plant, which employs 40.<\/p>\n\n
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\nRead More: Trump\u2019s Trade Wars Hit Cannabis Businesses Hard<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"