US outdoor industry hit by tariffs 
2019-09-24
With winter approaching, US outdoor industry brands should have been filled with joy at this time of year, preparing for a big jump in holiday sales. However, it is not true for this upcoming winter.
Data from the Outdoor Industry Association showed Washington’s additional tariffs imposed on Chinese imports cost the industry US$1.8 billion more than expected from September 2018 to July 2019, which hit the industry with some 7.6 million employees like a sledgehammer.
As American outdoor manufacturers and retailers are exposed to chilly economic conditions, industry forecasts amid the ongoing US-China trade friction suggest that “winter” is coming.
Krimson Klover, a women’s outdoors clothing retailer located by the Rocky Mountains foothills in Colorado State, is already losing revenue due to the trade tensions.
“People will be going out of business because of this (trade row),” said Krimson Klover’s CEO and founder Rhonda Swenson. “We’re in a really competitive industry ... It’s a huge financial burden (and) taking the tariffs is a big hit,” Swenson said.
As the label on its products shows, the company follows an operation pattern of “Designed in Boulder, Colorado; Made in China.” About 95 percent of the clothes are manufactured by Krimson Klover’s four partner factories in China, with one in Shanghai’s Pudong, one near Shanghai and two in China’s southern province of Guangdong.
The company also employs more than 10 people in Boulder, plus five contract designers and some sales representatives.
“We have been working with our current factories close to 20 years,” said Swenson, noting that she visited China several times a year in two decades.
Outdoor industry officials have said some businesses have already been hit “astronomically” and that small businesses are getting hammered the hardest by extra fees on Chinese goods.
In June, some 660 US companies, including 21 outdoor industry players, wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump to voice their concern about the escalation of the tariffs. 
“If tariffs are imposed, Columbia Sportswear Company along with many other manufacturers in our industry will be forced to raise prices on our products. This is a massive tax on employers and consumers, not on China,” said Tim Boyle, president and CEO of Columbia Sportswear Company, an industry leader in US outdoor apparel and products, in a statement in August.
The outdoor recreation economy accounts for 2.2 percent of the US gross domestic product in 2016, or US$412 billion, according to data from the Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis under the US Department of Commerce.
“New data compiled and analyzed by the Trade Partnership (a research and consulting firm based in Washington DC) includes the toll of tariffs on a variety of outdoor recreation equipment including backpacks, camp chairs, leather ski gloves, kayaks and bicycles, which are saddled with the 25 percent punitive tariffs, causing the average tariff rate on outdoor equipment to more than double compared to the previous year,” the OIA said earlier this month.
“The trade war is wreaking havoc on the American outdoor industry among many others,” said Patricia Rojas-Ungar, OIA vice president of government affairs. 
“The punitive tariff payments are essentially new taxes on American businesses and consumers, forcing American companies to halt new hiring, close new product lines and absorb these unexpected costs wherever they can,” she noted.
