WASHINGTON – A family owned cabinet company from Ashland, Alabama, is urging the Trump administration to issue sweeping tariffs on foreign cabinets, arguing the imports make it difficult for domestic manufacturers to compete.
Owner of Wellborn Cabinet, Stephen Wellborn, joined U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance Wednesday to advocate for a 100% tariff on imported wooden kitchen and bathroom cabinetry from all countries.
“The imports are devastating to businesses like us and the livelihood of our employees,” Wellborn said at the press conference. “At Wellborn, we have gone from producing 13,000 cabinets a week to 10,000; from 65 trucks a week leaving our company to 50.”
Wellborn said his company has 1,400 employees and is a critical industry in Ashland, a rural community in Clay County home to nearly 2,000 people.
Tuberville echoed Wellborn’s call for the tariffs on cabinets, highlighting how the domestic cabinet industry contributes to 5,000 jobs in Alabama.
“We’ve got to do it, or we’re going to lose these great jobs…and these companies in our state and other states in the country,” he said.
In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order launching a new trade investigation into the national security threats of imported timber and lumber, including their derivative products such as cabinetry. The Section 232 investigation under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 could lead to more tariffs on lumber and cabinets, which Wellborn Cabinet and Tuberville support.
The results of the investigation are due within 270 days of the executive order. The cabinet industry representatives on Wednesday said they wanted the investigation to lead to 100% tariffs with no exceptions. Wellborn said they specifically want that high rate because if they sell a cabinet at $100, foreign countries can sell it for $40. He noted that just one piece of plywood that goes into his product costs $35, making it difficult to compete with the cheaper cost of foreign-made cabinets.
“We’re asking for 100% to where at least it would make them an $80 cabinet, (it) would still be under our market, but we feel that we can sell that value of American made if we do that,” Wellborn told Alabama Daily News.
The National Association of Home Builders strongly opposes the investigation into foreign lumber being a national security threat, arguing the “housing crisis is a bigger threat to national security than imported lumber or timber,” the organization said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
“Without imported lumber, housing starts would slow and the cost to construct a new home would rise significantly as domestic lumber supply contracts without meaningfully satisfying existing demand,” the NAHB wrote.
Imported cabinets to the United States come from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia and China, according to the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance.
In pushing for the tariffs, Tuberville acknowledged that “some people will suffer” from imposing taxes on imports, which could raise prices on goods. However, he stands behind Trump’s continued efforts to lobby tariffs across the board.
“(If we don’t) put these tariffs on other (countries), they’re going to send cheap manufacturing goods in, and we’re going to lose all of our jobs here, and if we don’t have jobs, then we’re going to have to put them on government payroll, and we can’t allow that to happen,” Tuberville told ADN.