The challenge
A paper crafting and stationery company built its business on consumer-grade tools like die-cutting machines, hot foil presses, and embossing dies sourced from a manufacturing relationship in China, the only viable source able to meet the company's quality, cost, and volume requirements. U.S. manufacturing for these hobby products closed decades ago.
Beginning in 2018, Section 301 tariffs threatened to raise costs across the company's entire product line, putting the small business's pricing and profitability at risk.
Our approach
LNE Group filed successful rounds of USTR exclusion requests for the client's core Chinese imports affected by the Section 301 tariffs, documenting the absence of any domestic or third-country manufacturing alternative and the economic harm additional duties would cause a company whose primary product lines were subject to the tariffs.
LNE Group also organized the first arts and crafts industry fly-in to Washington, D.C., and supported a grassroots strategy encouraging crafters across the U.S. to write and send cards to Congress and the Executive Branch urging tariff relief for this category of consumer goods.