Trump says furniture makers coming back to North Carolina as Canadian company moves to state

Trump has applauded furniture makers moving production to the US amid tariffs, with one company closing its Canadian production facility and shifting all production to the United States, while a North Carolina furniture maker is closing its doors due to ongoing production issues with its main supplier in Mexico, among other issues.

"Those tariffs, next year will make us $1 trillion. In addition to the $1 trillion, thousands of companies are gonna relocate back into the United States. In North Carolina, already furniture people are starting to move back in," Trump said.

Progressive Furniture, a subsidiary of Sauder Woodworking and importer of "budget friendly" furniture from Asia and Mexico, will be closing at the end of the year and laying off around 30 employees, per Furniture Today.

President of the company, Dan Kendrick, told the outlet, "This decision was not made lightly, and we understand the impact it will have on our employees, customers and partners. We are committed to supporting our employees through this transition and will aid where possible to help them find new opportunities."

The closure of the company was blamed on multiple issues, but mainly on the closure of the company’s primary supplier in Mexico. Kendrick said, "Obviously, business conditions have been challenging for the past few years, but the closure of our primary supplier in Mexico has made a major impact. This factory supplied 60% of our products."

According to Home News Now, the company’s main supplier, Baja Wood, was based in Rosarito, Mexico. In January, around 60 of Baja Wood’s 320 employees protested outside of the factory over reduced hours. The factory was shut down as government officials investigated the claims, which required a lengthy interview process. At the end of the investigation, the plant owner decided not to reopen. Baja Wood and Progressive furniture were closely intertwined, with the US company receiving over 50 percent of its wood furniture from the Mexico plant, and Progressive being the plant’s primary customer in the US.

"For the past 30 years, it’s been great," Kendrick said. "But in the new era that we are in, it is probably not the smartest model to have." This comes as Trump’s tariffs have taken effect worldwide, and while Kendrick did not say the tariffs directly resulted in the plant’s closure, it complicated matters.

"I am not in any way going to say that this was due to the tariffs, but it did impact the decision." He said that the company had looked into sourcing the Mexico-produced items in Asia, but it would have taken a year at least before "we would have anything ready to go. We’ve kind of exhausted every possibility there."

"I think at the end of the day, our end consumer just has no money," Kendrick said. "They are tapped out on their credit, they have no money and they are struggling to buy a $17 burger that used to be $7. I understand that the higher-end business is decent still, but for anybody that is in this mid-to-lower price range it is just a struggle."

While Progressive Furniture is closing, another furniture company, Prepac Manufacturing, is closing its Canadian facility and centering its manufacturing at its North Carolina facility. 

Prepac, founded in 1979 by Vancouver startup entrepreneur Steve Simpson, had opened its 260,000-square-foot plant in Whitsett, North Carolina in 2021, after expanding into its fourth building in Delta, British Columbia in 2020.

CEO Nick Bozikis told the Vancouver Sun that the decision to center production into the US came long before tariffs talks began. 

"The decision to centralize production into our North Carolina facility was the product of many months of consideration and analysis, and began long before any tariff risks to Prepac’s business arose," he said. "The last several years have been challenging for North American furniture manufacturers with overall demand currently lower than when we opened the North Carolina facility in 2021."

“The closure of our Delta facility is a necessary step that reflects the realities of Prepac today, and the prospects for the company going forward," he added, saying that the decision to close the plant "was in no way a reflection on the quality of our BC team." He said that 70 percent of Prepac’s customers were on the US east coast, so the Carolina facility would better service those customers.

Unifor, the union that represents the severed workers in Delta, told the Sun, "Our union has been warning about lost investment and production since Trump began his economic war on Canada and Canadian workers. In this case, Prepac and its equity owners are using the tariffs as an excuse to redirect all their production to the US," Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, said. 

"It’s pure greed," she added. 

Manufacturing processes in Delta ended on March 14. The company expects all workers to be severed by May.