For two decades, Jim Sanfilippo has designed high -power specialized LED lights for stages, the American Housematographic and Televised Cinematographic and Televised Productions, including the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace”.
From now on, the owner of the small Pasadena company is preparing for uncertainty while the United States confronts its highest average effective rate rate in almost a century.
The new trade policies of President Trump, including a 145% rate on Chinese products, will affect each imported element of the business lights of the company, most of which are assembled in Pasadena from parts manufactured in Asia. This includes electroluminescent diodes, printed circuit cards and the durable metal case that protects the lights from news vans and on filming trays.
“It’s chaos created by uncertainty,” said Sanfilippo. Not knowing whether the new prices are a permanent policy or a negotiation position has made it impossible to plan, he said, and the customers of his business, Nila, are waiting to place orders.
This is an example, said that the American representative Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), who visited Nila on Friday, of “what chaos and what type of economic slowdown” Trump’s pricing policies could give in for small businesses. This included a 10% rate between imports from all countries, and even higher rates for dozens of countries, until they were temporarily suspended in early April.
Some countries, including Canada and China, have retaliated by imposing their own prices on American products, by putting California companies – including farmers in the Central Valley and Hollywood workers – alert.
Trump said he was thinking Prices are necessary To reduce the trade deficit with other countries, bring national manufacturing and protect the American industries.
He recently pointed out that prices could change again, telling journalists this week that the rate of 145% on Chinese products is “very high, and it will not be so high – will not be so high. No, it will not be close to this top.
In the morning after the elections, Sanfilippo said that he started to precipitate the orders of suppliers, including a final order just before the inauguration that he paid an additional $ 17,000 to ship by plane. Air Cargo takes two to three days from Asia, he said, while sea navigation takes three to seven weeks.
Now he said: “If I was trying to get more food for one of these lights, at the moment, there will be a separate line element for prices, and this number will change according to the day I get the shipment.”
This planning in advance bought a certain breathing room in Sanfilippo. It has enough supplies to fill about two years of controls for its smallest and most popular lights, and about six months of controls for the largest and most expensive lights used by trucks and high -speed photographers.
What will happen to several million dollars projects is in the air, he said. Nila has designed the lighting of several stages, including the Galaxy Carson house and a Houston stadium for male and female professional football teams.
He said he had an open order with the American Senate recording studio, where interviews’ cinematics legislators. The company also lit the Camp David press room, several committee rooms for the Congress Chambers and the main chamber of the House of Representatives of the United States.
During her first decade of operations, Nila used American manufacturers for most parts, based on a temecula machinist for the metal housing and a North Carolina factory for LEDs.
The company moved to overseas sellers about a decade ago as American prices increased and factories closed. The return to interior manufacturing would send the prices of Nila on the arrow, said Sanfilippo. A compact light the size of a Kleenex box, used on television and movie sets, sells for about $ 1,000, but would amount to 10 times that if all the parts were made in the United States, he said.
A factory that manufactures parts for Sanfilippo lights in Shenzhen, China, explores the possibility of opening an installation in Mexico, he said. The lower wages of the country would give the factory a discount on the skilled workforce, as well as faster transport times and a lower rate rate for exports to the United States
As a rule, each Light Nila goes through the United States for assembly and quality control, said Sanfilippo. He is now preparing to avoid the American tariff system as much as he can, strengthening his list of international customers and directly ships products from China.
He said that he would also constitute his advisory activity for American companies who wish to reduce their energy consumption, although the orders they ultimately bring in China.
California Daily Newspapers
