US President, Donald Trump, had been complaining about Chinese trading practices, even before he took office in 2016, claiming an “unfair deal” for the US. In 2017, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese products, triggering a tit-for-tat, or tariff-for-tariff, trade war. Such disputes between major economies have a global impact across many sectors, and according to the latest report from Memoori the lighting industry is already feeling the strain. For lighting, the focus is on Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), a critical component of modern lighting solutions since the 1990s. An inexpensive and low-power source of illumination, LEDs have already overtaken all other luminaires as the first choice for new installations globally. An extension of the US tariffs on Chinese goods, in September 2018, included more than 30 categories of LED lighting-related products, which were subject to 10% tariff increases. President Trump threatened to raise that to 25% the beginning […]