Dutch lighting company fears strong increase in import duties if Donald Trump is elected

Lighting company Signify is fearing high import duties for lamps from China if Donald Trump wins the American presidential election. CEO of the company, which used to be the lamp branch of Philips, Eric Rondolat, told stockholders this on Friday. “We have a plan A, plan B, and plan C, dependent on where the political world goes.”

Trump wants to implement import duties of 60 percent on “goods from China” if he is elected president again on 5 November. American import duties are not new for Signify, which makes most of its products in China, but they have never been higher than 25 percent.

The United States is an important market for Signify. While the company does not provide separate figures for the country, nearly 40 percent of its sales came from the Americas last year.

“We are preparing for this, and that is why we at other low-cost countries like India or Indonesia,” Rondolat explained. “At the same time, we are also looking at whether we can specialize our facilities in Mexico so that we can move activities there more quickly if tariffs go up.”

Signify already has experience when it comes to moving their production, as they also had to do so during Donald Trump’s first term as president of the United States. "We also adjusted our manufacturing footprint at that time. We looked at products that could be made closer to the United States or in the United States, but at a price that could compete with Chinese manufacturing prices."

The company has no plans to pull out of China despite the fears of high import duties. “We believe in the Chinese market in the long term, absolutely,” Rondolat emphasized. “We are just going through a difficult time now.”