Tuesday, May 28, 2019
By DAVID SKOLNICK
skolnick@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
After meeting with Donald Trump, Phantom Fireworks CEO Bruce Zoldan said he’s hopeful the president will remove fireworks from the list of goods made in China that could face a 25-percent tariff.
But Trump didn’t make a commitment, Zoldan said.
Zoldan told The Vindicator he, along with a small group of business executives, met with the president last Wednesday to discuss the impact the tariffs would have.
While at the White House, Zoldan said he also met with “high-level officials” in the Trump administration about the issue. The meetings came at the request of the White House, Zoldan said.
Unlike other goods that are also made in the United States, fireworks are almost exclusively made in China ,so there are no options to purchase them domestically, Zoldan said.
“The president and everybody was sympathetic to our rationale and our reasoning for getting it removed,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been invited if there wasn’t a willingness to listen. It was good to have somebody there to talk to and have an interest. I feel the fireworks industry plea that there is no other place, but China was heard.”
Still, Zoldan said, Trump and his administration made no commitments. But, he said, he was invited back to the White House at some point in the next couple of weeks to further discuss the issue.
The United States and China are in a trade war with each country imposing tariffs on various goods.
For the fireworks industry, the tariff would have a huge impact, but it would not be immediate, he said.
The tariffs on fireworks, if they happen, would go into effect July 1.
Phantom has already purchased its supplies for the July 4 holiday so it wouldn’t be passed along to the consumer now, he said. But it would after the holiday.
“Everyone will have to pay significantly more,” Zoldan said. “Their budgets may be cut in half [for fireworks]. This is a hardship for every American.”
For the United States or any other country to get into the fireworks production business, it would take five to 10 years to get going, he said.
“The Chinese have been making fireworks for 1,000 years,” Zoldan said. “There’s no other country in the world that produces fireworks like China. I have nowhere else to go.”