OPINION:
America’s economy thrives when businesses and consumers are free to buy and sell in global markets unburdened by needless regulations and taxes.
Free trade is a powerful driver of economic growth and progress. When foreign governments prop up businesses with massive subsidies, encourage intellectual property theft and inhumane labor practices, and use tariffs to keep Americans out of foreign markets, that is not “free trade.” It’s a rigged system in desperate need of reform.
The Trump administration recognizes these challenges and has taken long-overdue steps to correct mistakes. Doing so helps businesses like my family’s resist moving their operations overseas to survive.
In 1997, my family and I founded Electric Mirror in our three-car garage in Lynnwood, Washington. Our first invention, a simple mirror defogger, gradually allowed us to innovate and patent 70 technologies we designed from the ground up. The hotel and housing industries had never seen anything like our products. Customers fell in love with our offerings, and the orders poured in.
What started as a small, family-run business with just four employees in a garage grew into the livelihoods for 440 families, mostly blue-collar manufacturers working in our 125,000-square-foot facility in Everett, Washington.
Although other industries have enjoyed price increases in the past decade, ours have spiraled downward. We have been forced to cut American manufacturing jobs to stay competitive and even to outsource some of our production to China. What changed?
Overseas competitors copied our patented technologies, undercut our prices with foreign government subsidies and flooded the U.S. market with lower-quality knockoffs.
We have spent millions of dollars defending our intellectual property, including working with the International Trade Commission. Still, foreign companies continue to unjustly profit from our designs at the expense of blue-collar Americans struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, tariffs and regulatory hurdles in many countries make it prohibitively expensive or impossible to sell our products abroad.
We were thrown our first lifeline when President Trump imposed tariffs during his first term. However, this wasn’t enough to compensate for the unfair practices supported overseas, mainly by China.
My family and I found ourselves outsourcing more production overseas while doing everything possible to keep our U.S. factory going. The finances never made sense. Many told us to shut down our factory and move it all, but we kept it going because we believed it was right.
Our company and our employees helped build an entire industry. Yet foreign competitors, supported by unfair trade practices, have continued to expand market share and undercut us.
Ours is not the only company victimized by unfair or illegal trade practices. The FBI estimates that the “annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion.” China, the agency notes, is “the world’s principal infringer of intellectual property.”
Further, the Economic Policy Institute found that the trade deficit with China cost the United States 3.7 million jobs from 2001 to 2018.
Some losses can be chalked up to legitimate market forces, such as labor costs. However, foreign countries’ tariffs, tolerance of intellectual property theft and other unfair practices have undeniably played major roles.
Under these conditions, American manufacturing businesses like ours simply can’t compete, at least not while keeping operations in the United States.
The Trump administration’s tariffs and push for fairer trade agreements, especially with China, have been game changers. These policies allow Electric Mirror to continue manufacturing in America, where we began and want to stay. At the start of 2025, we were considering moving our factory overseas. Now, we plan to build a new factory in the United States.
The tariff strategy may need short-term modifications, as most electronics are single-sourced from China and have no viable alternatives. Many companies such as ours need a longer window to reshore vital components.
However, the Trump administration’s new trade policies were long overdue. For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations turned a blind eye as China and others undermined our economy and stole American innovations. Companies like ours and the American workers we employ have paid the price.
The Trump administration’s tariffs and trade reforms are helping save my family’s manufacturing business and countless other companies from being forced to leave America. You might not like tariffs. I don’t either. Still, there are moments in history when they are a tool necessary to restore fairness to the marketplace. This is one of those moments.
• Jim Mischel is a patent attorney and the co-founder and CEO of Electric Mirror.
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