Retailers oppose attempt to slow Chinese imports

Steep 'antidumping' penalties will hurt sales, they say.
HIGH POINT, N.C. (AP) -- "Blame China" has been a common refrain from North Carolina manufacturers in recent years, as cheap labor and free trade siphon thousands of jobs in traditional industries such as textiles and furniture.
But when the furniture industry gathered for its semiannual high-profile showcase last week, some of the nation's largest furniture retailers rose to the defense of cheap Chinese imports.
A coalition of 31 retailers attending the spring International Home Furnishings Market announced their opposition to steep "antidumping" penalties on some Chinese imports of wooden bedroom furniture.
"Barriers to trade don't help anyone and they hurt the consumer," said Keith Koenig, chief executive of City Furniture, a chain of 13 stores based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who attended last week's news conference.
"We retailers feel that if prices go up on bedroom furniture like they would like them to, consumers will stop or at least considerably slow down their purchases," Koenig added. "Retail jobs will be lost and overall job growth will be slowed."
Besides City Furniture, the retailers opposing the antidumping petition include some of the nation's best-known furniture store chains, including Rhodes Furniture, Rooms to Go, Crate & amp; Barrel, The Bombay Co., and Haverty's.
Opposite sides
The retailers' position puts them on the opposite side of the trade debate from many of the manufacturers who supply the products that fill their stores.
Last fall, a group of American makers -- including Vaughan-Bassett, Stanley and Laz-Z-Boy -- filed an anti-dumping petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The filing accuses Chinese makers of selling wooden bedroom furniture in the United States for less than the cost of manufacturing it. U.S. trade laws prohibit that sort of "dumping."
Doug Bassett of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture said the manufacturers' group does not oppose all imports, "We're just against illegally dumped ones."
And he said the "hot rhetoric" from members of the retailers group doesn't match the actions of some, who appear to be buying more American-made products.
Even though six of Vaughan-Bassett's top 25 retail customers stopped ordering furniture from the company because of the anti-dumping petition, Bassett said his company's overall business is up about 7 percent this year.
Retailers need to trust consumers more, Bassett said.
"The American consumer is imminently fair," he said. "They don't want to benefit from any product being illegally dumped."
Analysis
Furniture industry analyst Jerry Epperson expressed surprise at how the trade issue has divided the normally placid furniture industry. He believes there is a good chance the Commerce Department will impose anti-dumping tariffs ranging from 2 percent to 30 percent as a result of the petition.
The department is expected to make a preliminary ruling on the petition by mid-June; tariffs could be imposed as early as July.
Bassett estimated that 34,700 wood furniture jobs -- or about 28 percent of the total work force in that specialty sector -- have been lost in this country since January 2000. China's exports have grown from $400 million in wood bedroom furniture in 2000 to $1.4 billion in bedroom shipments in 2003, he said.
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