Furniture: 30% tariffs risk "wiping out the US market"

"A 30% tariff on finished products risks wiping out furniture exports to the United States." FederlegnoArredo president Claudio Feltrin – generally not prone to alarmism – doesn't mince his words in his immediate comments on Trump's decision.

This is a huge blow to the Italian wood-furniture industry (which generated €51.7 billion in revenue in 2024), and particularly to the furniture industry, which generates €14.4 billion in revenue abroad out of a total of €27.5 billion (according to data from the Fla research center). For this industry, the United States represents not only the second-largest foreign market after France (with €1.7 billion in exports in 2024), but also one of the few major destination countries to have held steady during the last two years of slowdown.

Indeed, in the first quarter of 2025, probably due to a "stock-hoarding effect" in anticipation of the tariffs, exports to the United States increased by 3% for the entire wood-furniture supply chain, against a stationary export trend (-0.4% compared to the first quarter of 2024).

"We're now waiting to better understand how the tariffs work, but a flat 30% of the product's value is a figure that will certainly have a significant impact on consumption, especially considering that we have to add the devaluation of the dollar to the tax. This adds up to an additional 40% to the final cost, which risks being unsustainable."

This is especially true for companies that produce consumer goods and which, although they target a high-end market, are directly affected by the loss of purchasing power of end customers.