Tariffs take their toll

The impression among US leaf dealers is that Chinese buyers have decided to honor their contracts with the US Tobacco Co-operative and some individual growers they have previously contracted with, according to the most recent issue of Christopher Bickers’ Tobacco Farmer Newsletter.
US tobacco is one of the products implicated in the trade dispute between the US and China and the dealers have apparently been led to believe that there will be no other Chinese purchases of US flue-cured this year.
Bickers (cebickers@aol.com) reported also that the prices offered at the opening sales that took place this week at most of the flue-cured auction warehouses were not encouraging.
Meanwhile, the first round of US tariffs on Chinese vapor products has taken effect with the imposition of a 25 percent tax on all shipments of ‘e-cigarettes, mods, batteries, and similar devices from China’, according to a Vaping360 story relayed by the TMA.
The story said the tax would be felt by US importers, wholesalers, retail sellers, and vapers because very little domestic manufacturing existed.
“For the vast majority of American vapers, the choice is not going to be an American-made product versus a Chinese-made product with a 25 percent tariff,” American Vaping Association president Gregory Conley was quoted as saying. “It’s only going to be the latter, which isn’t much of a choice at all.”