OPINION:
President Trump secured more than $2 trillion in economic deals on his recent Middle East trip to grow our economy and create tens of thousands of new American jobs. Our president and his team also secured a historic trade deal with China that reduces tariffs and sets the American people on the path for truly free, fair trade.
Having traveled across our nation with President Trump as his chief of staff, I saw firsthand his strong desire to bring about real fair trade for American manufacturing workers in critical sectors of our economy. On March 1, he launched a Section 232 trade investigation for lumber, timber and derivative products, such as cabinets, to save these great American industries. This is personal, as my home state of North Carolina was the furniture capital of the world, and unfairly traded foreign imports resulted in widespread plant closures and layoffs. By moving swiftly, Mr. Trump is taking strong action to save domestic jobs in timber, lumber and cabinetry.
The great President Reagan remarked that all change in America starts at the kitchen table. Mr. Trump launched the Section 232 investigation to help save American cabinet manufacturing from the predatory practices of foreign producers, including selling into the United States at prices 70% lower than the market rate. In recent months, U.S. plants have closed and thousands of U.S. cabinetmaking jobs have been lost in Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia and North Carolina. In my home state, three plants were forced to shut down.
These are the types of well-paying jobs that sustain communities across America’s heartland, and the Trump administration is working hard to stop the cheating that threatens them. Mr. Trump is now fighting to save the domestic kitchen cabinet industry, which supports more than 250,000 American jobs, from a flood of unfairly traded foreign imports from China, Mexico, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The list of unfair trade practices is familiar: illegal subsidies to help mass manufacturing, dumping products below the market prices and transshipment, whereby a country or producer — in this case, China and Chinese producers — move products through a third country to evade U.S. duties. Ninety-five percent of the businesses harmed by these practices are small and family-owned. If nothing changes, 250,000 American jobs will be wiped out. Although U.S. duties were effective at the time, communist China now moves its products through Mexico, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, continuing to dump these products in the U.S. This has devastated workers and their families in my home state and across the nation. This time, no exclusions or exemptions should be granted for any wooden kitchen cabinets, vanities or components parts. We need targeted tariffs to address these unfair trade practices. Allowing the Chinese government to circumvent free trade guardrails will ultimately put the U.S. at the mercy of an international supply chain.
If the Trump administration takes strong, decisive action with the Section 232 tariffs, we will unleash a new golden age for domestic cabinet manufacturing. This is not a question of reshoring; existing domestic cabinetry production capacity can meet demand and replace those illegal imports at the fair market rate. American family-owned businesses will ramp up production, hiring back thousands of workers and bringing investment to their towns.
Our president is on a mission to make America the manufacturing superpower of the world once again. A targeted Section 232 tariff on foreign cabinet imports will help further that mission and revitalize towns and communities across America’s heartland.
Mr. Trump was reelected as a voice for the forgotten men and women of America. He is continuing to fight for American manufacturing workers, and he needs our support. Now is the time to tell your political leaders to stand strong with Mr. Trump’s agenda and support domestic manufacturing jobs as we work together to truly make our country great again.
• Mark Meadows served as the 29th White House chief of staff and as a member of the U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District from 2013 to 2020.
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