Paramount Export of Oakland is an 80 year old, employee owned company of 115 people exporting fruit and produce worldwide. Folks here, felt the first impacts in June when tariffs were hiked to 25%. Today, things have gotten even worse.
"Tariffs on lemons are up to $35 a carton which essentially doubles the price of the shipment," said sales associate Dave Najarian. "Already our customers say, we can expect a 70 to 80 percent decline in the volumes of produce that we're shipping to China or to Hong Kong," said company president Nicholas Kukulan. That could end up being a $2 billion a year hit on agricultural exports to China on our farmers.
Tariffs are just one hit of a triple whammy. Whammy two: at Chinese ports, highly perishable shipments can be held up for days by Chinese government imposed inspections, chemical residue tests and bureaucracy. Whammy three: Loss of Chinese customers to other nations who have the same products, lower labor costs and no new tariffs.
"If that means looking to Spain, if it means looking to Egypt, some other sources for the same apples, grapes, citrus; they're gonna go for it and once it's gone, it's gone," Kukulan told ktvu.com.
