Business owner facing steep tariffs tests whether people will pay for ‘Made in USA’
Former VP Harris: Tariffs are ‘inviting recession’
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“The result was, unfortunately, disappointing,” Ramon van Meer told Fox News Digital. “We sold zero ‘Made in the USA’ shower heads.”
Van Meer, a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” is the founder of Afina, which sells a shower head that filters chemicals and heavy metals out of tap water. The shower head, manufactured in China and Vietnam, currently sells for $129.
Afina’s temporary landing page offered customers a choice between a shower head manufactured in Asia and one made in the U.S.A. The domestically-made version cost nearly three times as much to produce, founder and CEO Ramon van Meer said. (Screengrab
He found a U.S.-based company that could produce the shower heads — but at nearly triple the cost. To maintain Afina’s current profit margins, he listed the U.S. version side-by-side with the original with a brief explanation of the price difference, and gave customers the choice.
The landing page garnered nearly 26,000 visits over multiple days. Sometimes the U.S. version was the top, pre-selected option, and other times the Asian version was, van Meer said.
Van Meer shared the results on X, in a post viewed 10 million times as of Wednesday.
GROCERY GIANT WARNS SUPPLIERS IT WON’T BE ACCEPTING TARIFF-RELATED PRICE HIKES
President Donald Trump has championed tariffs as a tool to decrease America’s trade deficit and return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. But van Meer said the country lacks the manufacturing infrastructure to produce enough goods to meet demand right away.
He said he couldn’t find a single domestic manufacturer with the capacity to fill all of Afina’s monthly orders.
And that still won’t allow America to manufacture 100% of its goods, van Meer said. He pitched a health-monitoring cat litter on season 15 of the show “Shark Tank” that he said could not legally be manufactured in the U.S. due to strict environmental regulations.
Afina’s shower head filter similarly contains materials not made in the United States, van Meer said.
FILE – Stock photo of a ‘Made in USA’ product’s barcode. Getty Images
Van Meer told Fox News Digital the Asian-made shower head price is still at its pre-tariff level because Afina has six months of surplus inventory. Once that’s used up, he said the price will increase but will still be “significantly” cheaper than that of an American-manufactured shower head.
“Some of us cannot even pay the new tariff bills, let alone build our own manufacturing plants,” he said.
Original source: https://www.livenowfox.com/money
