By Daniel Pickard and Natan Tubman
Today many industries across the United States are struggling. Manufacturers of home goods, furniture, cabinetry and other items are facing increased costs and stiff competition from many angles. A key challenge is the seemingly endless flow of imports that compete unfairly with American-made products. For decades, Chinese-origin products have undercut domestic products and eroded the labor force that underpins the U.S. industrial base. Now, American manufacturers are facing a perfect storm — trying to weather degraded market position caused by decades of unfair competition, while also facing a new wave of imports caused by China’s resurgent export-focused macroeconomic policy.
State of the U.S. Industrial Base and How We Got Here
For decades after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the United States stood alone at the end of the table. It championed the geoeconomic dogma that globalization was a tide that would raise all boats for countries that went along with the Washington Consensus. During the 1990s, 2000s and even 2010s, the United States sought to use free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization to open markets, often by offering market access to trade partners.


This geostrategic approach of engagement through trade extended to countries command and control economies, and in 2000 the United States Congress enacted the U.S.-China Relations Act that normalized permanent trade relations between the two countries. Hoping to encourage China’s development toward a liberal market economy country, the United States also supported its 2001 accession to the WTO. However, these and later accommodating trade policies had two pernicious effects: opening the U.S. market to Chinese imports at the most-favored nation tariff rate (on average 3.4%)[1] and incentivizing offshoring U.S. production.[2]
Because of various factors such as lower costs of production, lax enforcement of environmental and labor regulations, and China’s export-focused industrial policy, the United States saw a rapid decline in domestic production across a number of industries. Yet, despite rampant predatory pricing and unfair subsidization of Chinese-made products, U.S. policymakers have been slow to respond to unfair trade, and often only when U.S. producers petition the government for relief. Because the U.S. response to unfairly traded goods from China has been slow and piecemeal, surviving U.S. manufacturers are disadvantaged to face a second wave of low-priced Chinese imports.
What Comes Next
U.S. industry is facing a new wave of unfair imports as China is doubling down on an export-driven industrial policy to overcome its worst economic downturn in 40 years. U.S. industry is set to become collateral damage of predatory trade from abroad all while policymakers remain unreliable.
Despite the challenges, there remain tools to protect U.S. manufacturers. Chief among these are trade remedies in the form of tariffs aimed at dumping or subsidization. For example, in the case of wooden bedroom furniture, a coalition of American furniture producers petitioned the U.S. government for relief from unfairly traded imports from China. As a result, the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. International Trade Commission investigated the extent to which imports of wooden bedroom furniture was being dumped into the United States and whether the U.S. domestic producers were being injured as a result. After both agencies reached affirmative determinations, the Commerce Department issued an antidumping duty order that imposed duties on covered merchandise by up to 198%,[3] thereby giving the U.S. producers a chance to compete on a level playing field.
Given the proliferation of unfair trade and likely wave of coming imports, it is important to consider all tools available. For industries facing unfair import competition, trade remedies are one of the few tools that can offer additional certainty and much-needed relief.
Daniel Pickard is a shareholder and chair of the International Trade & National Security practice group at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.
Natan Tubman is an associate in Buchanan’s International Trade & National Security practice group.
[1] UNCTAD, World Tariff Profiles 2024, available at https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/world_tariff_profiles24_e.pdf.
[2] Forty years of falling manufacturing employment: Beyond the Numbers: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov), available at https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling-manufacturing-employment.htm#:~:text=Despite%20being%20a%20leading%20driver%20of%20employment%20growth%20for%20decades (showing loss of over 4.5 million manufacturing jobs in the United States from 1990-2019).
[3] Notice of Amended Final Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value and Antidumping Duty Order: Wooden Bedroom Furniture From the People’s Republic of China, 70 Fed. Reg. 329 (Jan. 4, 2005), available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2005/01/04/E4-3926/notice-of-amended-final-determination-of-sales-at-less-than-fair-value-and-antidumping-duty-order,