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One of China’s foremost suppliers of fishing rods has declared that a trade war is underway and criticised the US administration for becoming increasingly ‘irrational and crazy’, accusing it of destroying the world trading system.
Qian Gang Wang (below left), owner of Weihai Hanhigh, told Angling International: “The US Government says it wants to balance its trade with other countries, but nobody believes that a tariff war is going to do that.”
Wang was speaking after US President Donald Trump threatened to increase tariffs to 104% on Beijing following tit-for-tat retaliation by the Chinese this week. “Everyone is concerned about the situation, but there is nothing businesses can do.
“It seems that the Chinese Government will not come to terms with the US so the trade war will drag on. No one knows how to stop it if both countries decide to chose fighting. However, one point is certain – even if the tariffs between China and the US become zero between each other, the imbalance between the countries will continue.
“That’s because no one believes that the US can produce a shirt or shoes as cheaply as the Chinese. What’s more, the US would not want to sell what China actually needs and that’s hi-tech products.”
Wang added: “We are lucky as a company up to now because we have nearly no business in the US, but if they destroy the world trading system for sure everyone will feel the negative impact.”
In the US, the industry is still taking in the effects of a hike in its imports from overseas suppliers. On a LinkedIn post, Greg Wollner, CEO of Northland Tackle, warned that it is looking at retail price increases approaching 50% for the Winter and next Spring.
However, he added: “Passing along the increases is the easy part. Forecasting how many units to buy is a risk that nearly killed many companies during the pandemic and here we go again. This time we didn’t get the benefit of a two-year demand cycle that exceeded capacity. This year we are trying to catch a knife falling, but this year we are blindfolded.”
The US Administration has been particularly focused on its neighbour, Canada, which along with Mexico and China, was the first to be hit with tariffs. However, Julien Morency (left), Director of Sales and Marketing at Breck’s International, says so far it has been business as usual.
“We lowered our US advertising spend owing to the uncertainty of the situation and are still being very careful about investments in our US markets going forward.
“There are relatively few Canadian exporters to the US, so now this is not the main focus of industry talks. Almost everyone is affected by the counter tariffs on goods coming the other way.
“Fishing and hunting are both impacted. Most Canadian retailers cater for hunting as well as fishing, and guns and ammunition are obviously a much larger part of cashflow and inventories, so discussion seems a lot more focused on that.
“Beyond that, the talk is mostly about uncertainty and how to price inventory in a situation where we do not know week to week what the cost of goods will be. The situation seems to have stabilised so now the talk is about how to pass on an increase in costs in the least disruptive manner.”
