Merriam, Kansas — Most will see just a furniture store when they visit My Home Contemporary Furniture in Merriam, Kansas, but for owner Henrik Svendsen, it’s the culmination of his life’s work.
“I opened up four years ago,” Svendsen told CBS News. “I thought it would be the retirement for the kids.”
Svendsen is closing his store in August. He said President Trump’s trade war is making the furniture he sells unaffordable to import and unaffordable for customers.
“It’s [the tariffs] affected it to the fact that we decided to liquidate everything,” Svendsen said.
He showed CBS News a sofa, imported from China, which he said would have previously retailed for $1,999. In May, the United States and China reached a temporary deal that saw the U.S. place tariffs of about 30% on Chinese goods. Both nations announced this week that they had reached the framework of a more permanent trade deal, although no details were confirmed.
“With the tariffs right now, it will be $2,500,” Svendsen said. “And it could be more.”
Svendsen says he has paid about $162,000 in tariffs since the president launched his trade war. He said choosing to close his store was a hard decision, but at the end of the day, he couldn’t absorb the tariffs because “we work with an everyday low sale price.”
“The margins are slim,” he added.
According to Svendsen, 99% of his furniture is imported, and 50% of that imported inventory comes from China, with the rest coming from Mexico, Thailand and nations in Europe.
Svendsen does sell American furniture. However, he said “a lot” of the components of that furniture are still made overseas, so they are not untouched by tariffs.
The store’s closing also means layoffs for Svendsen’s 10 employees, including Henning Mikkelsen.
“It is scary to not know what the future, you know, is going to bring,” said Mikkelsen, who doesn’t know what he plans to do next.
“I am not sure yet,” Mikkelsen said. “We all have to try and get food on the table.”
Ian Lee is a CBS News correspondent based in London, where he reports for CBS News, CBS Newspath and CBS News 24/7. Lee is a multi-award-winning journalist whose work covering major international stories has earned him some of journalism’s top honors, including an Emmy, Peabody and the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Tom Renner award.
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