BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 8, 2022
Shayne Kemp learned last week that his family’s craft wood company must pay $300,000 in import tariffs by Monday. The small company does not have that kind of money. Kemp, who is vice president of Farmington-based Kemp Enterprises, is concerned for his family and the broader implications for Maine’s wood industry, which has seen products it used to make in abundance move to cheaper overseas production. On top of a 25 percent duty levied on certain goods from China, are added tariffs of 220 percent of the value of certain millwork imports, including wooden dowels that Kemp Enterprises buys from a Chinese company. It is an example of the collateral damage to American companies from a trade war with China that began under former President Donald Trump but is still being enforced by President Joe Biden.