Furniture, who benefits from US tariffs?
Figures compiled by FederlegnoArredo show that furniture imports to the US have continued to grow, favouring Asian manufacturers
The real effectiveness of the tariffs introduced by the Trump administration to decrease imports and instead favour domestic production has been much discussed.
It is interesting, in this regard, to analyse the study carried out by the FederlegnoArredo study centre (based on UNcomtrade data) on furniture imports into the USA over the last 30 years, which reveals - numbers in hand - something that many have argued in theory. The scenario that emerges suggests in fact that "the American trade war has not reduced dependence on imports, but rather changed the geography of suppliers, redistributing quotas among alternative countries," explain the Fla study centre.
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China's rapid growth
In the early 1990s, in fact, the United States imported approximately$6.7 billion worth of furniture from the rest of the world. Italy, already then one of the largest suppliers of high-end furniture to the US, had a market share of 7.9%, higher, albeit slightly, than China's 7.2% share at the time.
Thirty years later, the scenario has totally changed: theimport of furniture by the United States has more than tenfold, reaching a peak of USD 80 billion in value in 2022, with China gaining market share to over 50% for 13 consecutive years.
Even before the setback caused by the pandemic, however, the People's Republic began to lose ground to other Asian producers, in particular Vietnam, which, in early 2025, became the leading furniture supplier to the United States, with sales worth more than USD 8.1 billion and, above all, a growth trend that not even the announcement and then the imposition of tariffs slowed down.
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