Antidumping: Industry's most divisive issue ever
Jay McIntosh, News Editor -- Furniture Today, November 23, 2003
In the Proposed Duties on Chinese bedroom furniture, the furniture industry faces its most divisive issue ever. Nothing else, not the 1-800 retailers or the flammability debate or the rise and fall of market venues, has created such an us-versus-them atmosphere.
While we try to imagine how the duties themselves might change the industry, we also wonder about the long-term effects of the hard feelings and harsh rhetoric.
Words on both sides of the issue are emotionally charged and the feelings behind them seem sincere. Backers of the duties say they're supporting American workers, and who can object to that? Opponents say the proposed duties are absurdly high and would hurt retailers, and that U.S. manufacturers were the ones who started importing in the first place and are only trying to limit the practice because — like Frankenstein's monster — it's now out of their control.
However the issue is decided, hard feelings could linger. Some people might never get along as well as they used to.
What we don't know from listening to the leading voices, however, is how many people have such passionate feelings, and how many are not entirely convinced which side is right, or figure they can live with whatever happens.
Furniture/Today's senior retail editor, Clint Engel, interviewed several retailers at random at the High Point market about the antidumping issue. What I found surprising was that, even though the duties would raise wholesale prices, about half the retailers said some trade sanctions should be applied if Chinese companies are shown to be acting illegally.
To Save American Factory Jobs, these retailers willingly would pay more. Granted, this was before we knew the size of the proposed duties, which could be 158% or more, and that might have changed some of the responses.
One group that avoided comment on the subject this month was the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn., which left antidumping off the agenda at its annual meeting. Even though it's the hottest topic going, and even though it was a law firm hired by the AFMA that originally said last May the industry could argue for trade sanctions against China, AFMA leaders apparently saw no benefit in rehashing arguments and stirring up hard feelings.
It will be impossible not to think about the issue, however, if we do wind up paying extra for Chinese wood bedroom furniture. Or if the antidumping petition fails, we'll think about it whenever another U.S. worker loses his or her job.
That's what sets the antidumping arguments apart from the other harsh words that are part of business, the half-rational hyperbole used to win concessions and influence negotiations, which can be forgotten before the next conference call.
In a way it's good that a third party — agencies of the U.S. government — will decide on the antidumping issue. At least anyone unhappy with the decision will be able to blame someone else rather than venting entirely on others in the industry.
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