In recent days, senior U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville raised concerns about unfair trade practices hurting thousands of Alabama residents, declaring at the National Press Club that, “this is war.”
Just as with other domestic industries, China is undercutting our cabinet businesses, basically cutting our throats.” Senator Tuberville is a champion for Alabama’s manufacturing jobs and the senator recently told us that “President Trump understands business, he understands manufacturing, and that’s the reason he’s going after unfair trade.”
As the Co-Owner of Wellborn Cabinet in Ashland, Alabama that employs 1,400 Alabamians, it was an honor to share the stage with Senator Tuberville, Congressional leaders, and industry leaders fighting to save our great domestic manufacturing industry. Wellborn Cabinet Co. is located in Ashland, Alabama, where we are the largest employer in the city, employing 1,400 people at our plant with a local population of 1,984. As the economic backbone of this community, Ashland, Alabama would be devastated if a closure were to occur.
When my father Paul Wellborn and his brother started this company 60 years ago, they worked hard to build up the business and grow the team working every day to make high-quality American-made cabinets. Our teammates are the foundation of our company which is why we provide as much as we can for them in terms of benefits like tremendous on site healthcare and daycare and subsidized hot lunches. When we speak to our great American workers, we hear how anxious they are about the flood of foreign cabinet imports that is threatening the very survival of our plant.
In April 2020, the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission determined that the U.S. kitchen cabinet industry had been greatly hit by the surge of subsidized cabinets from China. In response to this, Commerce imposed strong China-specific tariffs to help save the domestic industry. This appeared to work in the short-term. However, the Chinese Communist Party began to move cabinet products through foreign countries to evade the tariffs. As Senator Tuberville remarked, “China has been cheating the system by moving cabinets through countries like Cambodia, Mexico, Vietnam, Indonesia, and dumping things in this country.” These companies receive extensive government subsidies, harvest illegal timber, and engage in illegal transshipment and circumvention schemes to evade U.S. tariffs.
In recent months, thousands of American cabinet jobs have been lost in Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama, which has been hit the hardest. At Wellborn we have gone from producing 16,000 cabinets a week to 10,000 cabinets. We have gone from over 65 trucks leaving each week to less than 50. Above all else, we have gone from 2,200 employees to less than 1,400.
In response, President Trump initiated a Section 232 investigation in March of 2025 into imports of timber, lumber, and related products such as cabinetry. The goal of the investigation is to stop unfair trade practices, particularly the dumping of foreign-made cabinets into the U.S. market at prices over 70 percent below market value.
As Senator Tuberville tells us “President Trump has been strategically using tariffs.” That is why U.S. Senators Tuberville and Katie Britt, along with other members of Congress, have called on the president to impose a strong 100 percent tariff rate on cabinets to save over 5,000 Alabama jobs. It’s imperative that we have no exemptions and no exceptions for foreign countries to cheat the system.
Wellborn Cabinet and our domestic cabinet industry have sufficient production capacity to manufacture cabinets in the US. There would be no need to reshore, we are just asking to halt the cheating. Alabamians are fully capable of competing with anyone in the world; however, we can only do so on a level playing field.
As Senator Tuberville said “thousands of Alabama cabinet workers and their families need enforcement of a strong Section 232 tariff, the domestic cabinet industry contributes 250,000 jobs nationwide and 5,000 in Alabama alone. That’s why I encourage President Trump to continue leveraging tariffs. Don’t let up.” Senator Tuberville is right, now is the time to call your legislators and tell them to join with our political leaders to help save 5,000 Alabama jobs as we launch a new golden age for American cabinet manufacturing.
We are asking President Trump to save America’s domestic cabinet industry and impose a 100 percent targeted tariff rate on all foreign cabinet imports so we can truly Make Alabama Great Again.
