Armstrong Flooring (Lancaster, Pa.) announced it will increase prices on its engineered wood flooring, luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and rigid core flooring to offset recently approved 10 percent U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.
Armstrong Flooring (Lancaster, Pa.) announced it will increase prices on its engineered wood flooring, luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and rigid core flooring to offset recently approved 10 percent U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.
The company’s price increases will go into effect Oct. 1.
The announcement follows President Trump’s Sept. 17 approval of tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China, which will impact Chinese wood flooring products as well as LVT. The 10 percent tariffs are slated to go into effect Sept. 24 and will increase to 25 percent beginning Jan. 1.
Armstrong said it will implement an additional price increase Jan. 1 to also offset the U.S.’s scheduled tariff hike.
“Although increased prices due to the tariff are unavoidable, we will look for opportunities to mitigate the impact where possible,” Armstrong President and CEO Don Maier said in a statement.
Armstrong is primarily a domestic manufacturer, with three quarters of its sales in 2017 coming from products it produces in the U.S., Maier added.
“We have made substantial investments to expand our capacity to manufacture flooring products in the U.S., including developing LVT production lines at plants in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Oklahoma and increasing our engineered wood capabilities at plants in Kentucky and Pennsylvania,” he said.
Maier said the company also sees value in fair trade “worldwide.”
“Sourcing products from other countries expands our access to new innovations and provides additional capacity that is not available in the U.S. today to meet rapidly increasing market demand for specific products,” Maier said.
China announced Sept. 18 that it would retaliate with tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. imports. Trump has threatened to implement tariffs on $267 billion worth of additional Chinese products unless China yields and ceases “unfair trade practices.”
Armstrong has already been attempting to mitigate financial hits this year, citing energy, transportation and operating cost inflation after it raised prices on all product categories in May following a net income loss of $41.8 million in 2017.
