The U.S.-China trade war is creating something William Gagnon once thought impos...
The Western Massachusetts company uses parts made in the United States at its 50-employee factory, except for the motors and electronic controllers at their core. They long sought a domestic supplier for those items, but nobody could beat China’s low prices. Until now.
“We’d actually be willing to pay a little more for U.S.-made,” but due to the tariffs and the reduced cost of shipping from a domestic factory, the parts will end up costing less, he said, pointing to a prototype of a motor and controller on the table in front of him. The United States imported $11.5 million worth of hand dryers in 2018, the vast majority from China, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. As tariffs have kicked in, U.S. imports of hand dryers from China have edged down - declining nearly 9% since 2016 - while imports from Spain and Japan have increased.
Gagnon’s father, a former executive with the Hasbro Inc toy company, bought the dryer company in 1997, when it was a tiny operation with just $2 million in yearly sales. The company’s roots go back to 1963, when hand dryers were a relatively new technology. The company keeps a bulky cast iron hand dryer from the 1950s in its conference room as an oddity.
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