Washington Post: Trump’s tariffs could fizzle fireworks, an American tradition that’s 95 percent made in China

On May 24, the Washington Post published a story about how the proposed tariffs on Chinese imports would impact the fireworks industry and the NFA was featured. From the Washington Post story:

The escalating trade clash between the United States and China has sent thousands of U.S. companies scrambling to determine whether they could source goods from other countries to escape higher tariffs. But when President Trump threatened to tag large penalties on $300 billion in Chinese imports earlier this month, a sense of panic settled over the fireworks industry. It had nowhere else to go. 

Today, of the 250 million pounds of fireworks that are imported to the United States each year, nearly 95 percent come from China, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association. Trump has not yet imposed tariffs on fireworks, but they were recently added to a list of products that would face a 25 percent penalty if China doesn’t reach a broader deal with the White House soon. And if fireworks aren’t removed from that list, executives said, their businesses will not be able to absorb the costs. 

And if the industry can’t win an exemption before tariffs take effect this summer, the levy will cut deeply into the revenue streams of legions of small businesses, local economies, and the school groups and nonprofits that rely on fireworks for fundraisers.“The fireworks stands and tents you see in grocery store parking lots and on the roadsides serve as fundraising opportunities for organizations like school boosters, churches and veterans’ organizations,” the National Fireworks Association said in a news release after the tariffs were announced. “With an unfair tax that serves to raise the cost of firework devices so significantly, we’re hurting the very organizations that make up the fabric of America.” 

Steven Houser, secretary of the National Fireworks Association, said he’s heard from many of the group’s 1,200 members, who are frantically trying to understand what’s happening. 

“They listen to the news and hear them say tariffs and they think the sky is falling,” said Houser, who also owns and operates a wholesale fireworks company called Red Rhino Fireworks in Missouri. 

The industry — including groups such as the National Fireworks Association and the American Pyrotechnics Association — is now mobilizing and hoping to finesse an exemption for fireworks before the list of impacted imports is finalized and the tariffs take effect July 1.

To read the full article from the Washington Post click here.