'It's impossible' - Firm awarded King's Award for exports says US trade has dried up after 25 per cent tariffs imposed
An award-winning Bilston manufacturing firm honoured with a prestigious Royal award for achieving significant growth in exporting to North America has revealed enquiries from the USA have dried up in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Bowers & Jones, which is set to be presented with a King’s Award for Enterprise on Friday (September 19), is among firms hit with 25 per cent tariffs on steel products exported to North America.
Managing director Jane Somerville said customers had indicated they could weather tariffs of 10 per cent, agreed in the US-UK trade deal, but said 25 per cent would make exporting to North America “impossible” - eliminating any chance of pursuing further trade in what was a big target market.
She told the Express & Star: “We thought we came under the deal that Trump and Starmer agreed back in May but only a couple of weeks ago at the end of August the administration issued a new set of tariff codes for steel and aluminium of 25 per cent.
“So now we’ve got 25 per cent tariffs on everything we sell in North America because it’s made of steel.
“Our customers in North America had accepted 10 per cent, so we were able to put the 10 per cent on and pass it on and customers had accepted that was reasonable and given our cost base is relatively low we can still be competitive with the main competitors in the US but now we’ve got another 15 per cent on top of that - it’s just impossible.
“We’ll try our very best but I don't think we're going to be competitive. The enquiries have dried up, we’re not getting any enquiries coming out of the US. It’s not good.”
She said North America had been one of Bowers & Jones’ target markets when she and Nicola Owen took over the business five years ago.
