Photo by Neha Deshmukh on UnsplaWashington – With hospital beds a critical need during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. mattress industry is at loggerheads.

A group of U.S. mattress manufacturers who recently filed antidumping petitions against Vietnam and six other countries said that action will have no negative impact on the country’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, according to a report from HTT sister publication Furniture Today.

That group includes Brooklyn Bedding, Corsicana Mattress Company, Elite Comfort Solutions, FXI Inc., Innocor Inc., Kolcraft Enterprises Inc., Leggett & Platt Incorporated and others. The petitioners are suppliers and producers for major mattress brands such as Tempur-Pedic, Serta, Simmons, Sealy, Casper, Purple, Tuft & Needle and others.

However, a new group the American Mattress Alliance – contends the proposed antidumping petitions would impede their response to the crisis. [Editor’s note: The original version of this story included a link that mistakenly identified a number of companies as members of the alliance. Instead, it was a list of companies the group says would be negatively impacted by the antidumping petition, not all of whom are part of the alliance.]

The antidumping petition aims to bar imported mattresses, including medical-grade mattresses under a number of HTS codes including 9404.21, by imposing tariffs up to 1,008%. The seven developing countries targeted by the antidumping petition – Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, Serbia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia – represent 83.3% of all mattress imports in the U.S in 2020.

The International Trade Commission case is slated for a preliminary hearing on April 21.

Pro-tariff petitioner Brooklyn Bedding told Furniture Today that U.S. manufacturers have the scope to supply enough mattress during the pandemic.

“Our operations are also supported by a largely American supply chain, meaning that every mattress we produce also benefits American workers manufacturing textiles, foam, innersprings, machinery, and other components, as well as many transportation and retail workers,” said John Merwin, CEO Brooklyn Bedding. “And give me two hours on the phone and I can find you 50,000 mattresses a day of capacity right now in the United States, and we could start that production tomorrow.”

Members of the anti-tariff alliance argue the petition threatens to choke off supply in the middle of a national emergency.

Sam Malouf, CEO of Malouf, stated, “We were slapped in the face with this petition that is working against us as we race to get beds in hospitals. We don’t need this distraction. We don’t need to be pulled from the front lines. We need this ITC case stalled now. We need to focus on the crisis at hand.”

Mattress producers, importers tussle over antidumping actions amid COVID-19 emergency