‘Chaos created by uncertainty.' Tariffs hit a company that lights Hollywood — and Congress

Los Angeles Times

26-04-2025

For two decades, Jim Sanfilippo has designed high-wattage, specialized LED lights for stadiums, the U.S. House of Representatives and Hollywood film and television productions, including the James Bond movie 'Quantum of Solace.'
Now the Pasadena small-business owner is bracing for uncertainty as the U.S. confronts its highest average effective tariff rate in nearly a century.
President Trump's new trade policies, including a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, will affect every imported piece of the company's energy-efficient lights, most of which are assembled in Pasadena from parts made in Asia. That includes the light-emitting diodes, the circuit boards and the durable metal housing that protects the lights in news vans and on film sets.
'It's chaos created by uncertainty,' Sanfilippo said. Not knowing whether the new tariffs are a permanent policy or a negotiating position has made it impossible to plan, he said, and customers at his company, Nila, are waiting to place orders.
That's one example, said U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), who toured Nila on Friday, of 'what chaos and what kind of economic downturn' Trump's tariff policies could yield for small businesses. That included a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports from every country, and even higher rates for dozens of countries, until they were temporarily suspended in early April.
Some countries, including Canada and China, have retaliated by imposing their own tariffs on American goods, putting California businesses — including farmers in the Central Valley and workers in Hollywood — on high alert.
Trump has said he thinks tariffs are needed to reduce the trade deficit with other countries, bring back domestic manufacturing and protect American industries.
He has recently signaled that tariffs may change again, telling reporters this week that the 145% rate on Chinese goods is 'very high, and it won't be that high — not gonna be that high. No, it won't be anywhere near that high. It'll come down substantially, but it won't be zero.'
The morning after the election, Sanfilippo said he began rushing orders from suppliers, including a final order just before the inauguration that he paid an extra $17,000 to ship by air. Air cargo takes two to three days from Asia, he said, while sea shipping takes three to seven weeks.
Now, he said, 'If I tried to get more power supplies for any one of these lights, right now, there's going to be a separate line item for tariffs, and that number will change based on the day that I get the shipment.'
That advance planning bought Sanfilippo some breathing room. He has enough supplies to fill about two years of orders for his smallest and most popular lights, and about six months of orders for the larger and more expensive lights used by news vans and high-speed photographers.
What will happen to multimillion-dollar projects is up in the air, he said. Nila has designed the lighting for several stadiums, including the Carson home of the L.A. Galaxy and a Houston stadium for the men's and women's professional soccer teams.
He said he has an open order with the U.S. Senate recording studio, where lawmakers film interviews. The company has also lit the press briefing room at Camp David, several committee rooms for both chambers of Congress and the main chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In its first decade of operation, Nila used American manufacturers for most parts, relying on a machinist in Temecula for the metal housing and a plant in North Carolina for the LEDs.
The company moved to overseas vendors about a decade ago as U.S. prices rose and factories closed. Returning to domestic manufacturing would send Nila's prices soaring, Sanfilippo said. A compact light about the size of a Kleenex box, used on TV and movie sets, retails for about $1,000, but would rise to 10 times that if all the parts were made in the U.S., he said.
One plant that makes parts for Sanfilippo's lights in Shenzhen, China, is exploring the possibility of opening a facility in Mexico, he said. The country's lower wages would give the factory a discount on skilled labor, as well as faster transportation times and a lower tariff rate for exports to the U.S.
Typically, every Nila light passes through the U.S. for assembly and quality control, Sanfilippo said. He's now preparing to avoid the U.S. tariff system as much as he can, beefing up his roster of international clients and shipping products directly to them from China.
He said he'll also be building his consulting business for American companies that want to reduce their energy use, although the orders they eventually place would also come from China.