If you are shopping for holiday gifts and decorations this season, check the label for where the products were made. If the label says “Made In China” you can count on price increases in the near future.
On a recent trip to Target, I found row after row of Christmas decorations, all with “Made In China” labels. China has been the primary source of Christmas decorations, lights, and artificial trees for more than 25 years. Yiwu, a city in Zhejiang province about an hour by train from Shanghai, is known as the “Christmas capital of the world.” Over 600 factories in Yiwu and surrounding areas produce more than two-thirds of the world’s Christmas decorations.
Holiday gifts and decorations are just a few of the items that will likely increase in price based on the increase in import tariff promises made by the incoming Trump administration. The intended effect of high import tariffs is for manufacturing to come back to the U.S. by forcing importers to pay more (up to 60%) tariffs on Chinese imports. This makes domestically-produced goods appear to be price-competitive and imported goods appear to be more expensive. This is supposed to be the incentive for manufacturing these items in America instead of abroad.
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