Christmas Lights, Tangled in Trade War, Show Vietnam’s Struggle
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In living rooms across the U.S. and the world, Christmas lights this year tell a complicated trade-war tale that stretches all the way to Vietnam.
For many years the holiday lights were produced almost solely in China, but increased U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods pushed many buyers to source the goods elsewhere. One country that’s come out a clear winner is Vietnam: Sea-borne shipments of Christmas lights from Vietnam to the U.S. more than doubled in the first 10 months of the year from the same period in 2018, according to U.S. customs data. At the same time, American imports of the lights from China fell 49%.