2025.06.11
Trade wars and white goods
Trade wars and white goods – We find that headline in Danish-sounding language in our sister organization – APPLiA Denmark –’s latest newsletter, which comments on the impact of the tariff war on the white goods market. Here is the article by APPLiA-Denmark’s director Henrik Egede, translated into Swedish:
”"”The world economy seems to have been given a serious spin in some washing machine since the beginning of 2025! Will appliances, electronics and other technology now become more expensive due to the announced and partly ongoing tariff wars?
It is too early to tell, experts say. First, because decisions on new tariffs have not yet been fully finalized. Purely American products will likely become more expensive, but more than 75 percent of appliances sold in Europe are also produced in Europe. They are not directly affected by a tariff and trade war.
However, a high proportion of smaller electrical household appliances is produced in Asia – but this concerns trade between Europe and Asia, not the US. However, if exports to the US market decrease due to increased tariffs, this could mean an increased incentive for Asian producers to sell surplus production to Europe and other markets.
The white goods industry is otherwise fundamentally global. Products are assembled with components from many different countries. Therefore, increasing tariffs on components and more complicated supply chains could be a costly effect of a trade war, even for the white goods industry.
It's a complicated situation. One thing is certain: Danish consumer confidence, as measured by Statistics Denmark, is at its lowest level in a long time. On the positive side, the Danish housing market is active. This usually boosts sales of white goods..”
For the Swedish market, consumer confidence is also at a low level, just like in Denmark. However, some improvement is still visible in Statistics Sweden's latest figures from Swedish retail sales of durable goods in April.
Compared to the corresponding month in 2024, the sales volume of the entire Swedish retail trade increased by 5.3 percent in calendar-adjusted figures in April. Of this, the non-durable goods trade increased by a full 8.5 percent from a low level in 2024. The grocery trade increased by 1.9 percent in April. In comparison, we cannot see the positive signals of an activated housing market in Denmark on the Swedish market. We were recently able to report on a 30 percent decline in completed homes in Sweden in the previous year.
