Christie’s Asks to Be Excluded From Trump’s Tariffs on Chinese Imports, Claiming It Would Cause a ‘Significant Loss’ to Its Business

Christie’s has filed for
exemption against President Trump’s newly-imposed tariffs on
Chinese art and antiques.The
auction house was among the first businesses to appeal for an
exclusion yesterday, the first day in a three-month period in which
applications will be accepted by the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR). If approved, Christie’s will be excused from
a 15 percent duty levied on seven types of artwork and antiques
that come from China, including drawings, paintings, prints, and
sculpture. 

In its filing, Christie’s
claimed that rather than harming China, the tax will result in a
“significant loss” for the company’s US business and even
potentially push more collectors to buy Chinese art in China, where
they won’t have to pay additional fees. 

“It also will severely impact
the US art market as a whole, drying up any ability to purchase
Chinese artworks outside of the United States,” Christie’s
explained in the document. “Punishing the US art market in this
manner flies in the face of an important American value of support
for the art world.”

Christie’s appeal is in stage
one of a four-step process. Its request will now be reviewed by the
USTR, who will determine if the tariff would result in “severe
economic harm” to the company or American interests.

A product of Trump’s ongoing and
increasingly tense trade war with China, the tariff has yielded an
outcry from art dealers in the US market. In August, the
President announced that the
US would implement a 10 percent tax on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports,
including art and antiques. Later that month, he increased the
tariff to 15 percent. It
went into effect on September 1. 

“Based on the new Chinese
tariffs, it appears yet again that Trump prefers the law of
unintended consequences to more thoughtful regulation,” Thomas
Danziger, an attorney specializing in art law, told Artnet in
August. “The global
Chinese art market will definitely take a hit, but it is hard to
see how this will have a material impact on Chinese trade policy.
[Trump] probably gave as much thought to the tariffs as he did to
his last tweet.”

From now until January 31,
companies are invited to apply for exemption status with the
USTR.

Whether or not other auction
houses will follow Christie’s lead is still to be seen.
Representatives from Sotheby’s, Doyle, Bonhams, and Phillips did
not immediately respond to Artnet’s request for comment about
whether they planned to request a similar exemption.

The post Christie’s Asks to Be Excluded From Trump’s Tariffs
on Chinese Imports, Claiming It Would Cause a ‘Significant Loss’ to
Its Business appeared first on artnet News.