Quick-Fire Manufacturing, which makes solar chargers for mobile devices, is getting clobbered by the US decision to impose 31% tariffs on crystalline silicon cells from China – and 250% tariffs on Chinese suppliers who didn’t file required documentation in time. Quick-Fire’s supplier was one of them.
This amounted to paying duties of $7,500 on shipments worth only $3,000 — which pushed the cost of the product well above its retail price.
Trade wars don’t work, and this is a perfect example why. Rather than being protected, a blameless US company gets badly hurt instead. And they don’t have an alternate supplier.