Flower traders are also in ‘Trumps Rollercoaster’. ‘A tulip ball is not a pack of milk, Americans can do without’

If the light is already off with his colleagues who trade flowers early in the morning at the auction of Aalsmeer, especially for the European market, Paul Hoogenboom often still leads to his screen until midnight. Then he appeals and video with his more than four hundred American customers ‘across the street’, where it is six hours earlier. « Fast switching and short nights » Hoogenboom has become accustomed to in his two decades as director of floret exporter Holex Flowers. Half of its flowers is intended for the US, the turnover amounts to 60 million euros a year.

Hoogenboom mentions ‘9/11’, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull and the Coronapandemie as disruptions in the trade with the US he experienced. « But that everything went as much as this week as this week. I’ve never experienced it, » he says. « Here at the office we are already speaking of ‘Trumps rollercoaster’. » And so Hoogenboom was « a few more hours less » this week.

Dutch entrepreneurs are already experiencing the consequences of the trade war that US President Donald Trump started. Last Wednesday he announced a tax of 10 percent for most European products that enter the US, a week before, imports from the EU would even be taxed by 20 percent. The rates that Trump imposes on the rest of the world, such as the 145 percent on China, are also felt.

That certainly applies to the Dutch exporters from cut flowers to the US, which in 2024 carried out flowers for 163 million euros. The export value of flower bulbs is higher, around 325 million. Cut flowers are grown from some of the bulbs in the US. Because of that partly American production process, Mark-Jan Terwindt van Anthos, the trade association of trading companies in flower bulbs and tree nursery products, is hoping to be able to move the US to make an exception for flower bulbs « .

Easter and Mother’s Day

When Hoogenboom van Holex Flowers received apps from his sales team on Wednesday evening about the latest rate change from Trump was his first reaction: how long does this last? « Trump is so unpredictable that if the EU says something wrong tomorrow, we can be punished again with an even higher rate. »

He quickly calculated the levy and had the price lists of his flowers adjusted. « Some customers thought that the 20 percent were immediately completely gone, » says Hoogenboom, who immediately detects « more restraint ». « If supermarkets think that our tulips are another cent tomorrow, they wait by placing their orders. And that while Easter and Mother’s Day are coming, two ‘flower season days’ in the US continues to go through, but our flowers are becoming considerably more expensive. That is that simple. »

I have never experienced that everything went as much as last week

That is what Quirinus van den Berg, director of TotalGreen Holland. His great -grandfather, also a quirinus, began to grow tulip bulbs in 1876. The great -grandson no longer cultivates, but focuses on the export of bulbs to the United States and Canada from Zwaansbroek, a village in the Haarlemmermeer. The last Breaking News About the trade war, his office immediately rolls in through the American business channel CNBC, which « stands on this all day ».

Small margins

« The bulb world is a beautiful industry, but the margins are small, » says Van den Berg. He gives an example: « If I meet a customer this week that he has to pay 1 euro for my bulbs and that is why he puts them in his store for 1.99 euros, I can’t come back to that a week later and suddenly ask 1.22 euros. Americans are fantastic customers, but they are not crazy. »

Even with taxes of 10 percent, his flower bulbs are more expensive, and Van den Berg also takes into account a weak dollar and the rates for ships that arrive in the US under the Chinese flag – because his goods are also shipped. « During Corona, the whole of America was at home and they wanted to buy tulip bulbs. But a flower bulb is not a pack of milk, the American can do without our luxury article. »

Stef Ruiter and his brother Niels « learned the profession before we could walk, » he says. The two belong to the third generation of flower bulb growers in Andijk, West-Friesland. On their plots on the edge of the IJsselmeer they mainly grow tulip bulbs, a large part they ship to the US. The tulips come to flower on a previously calculated date. « So we deliver a semi -finished manufacture, » says Ruiter.

This week he was mainly concerned about his American trading partners. « You don’t want them to be priced out of the market, but that is what Trump is taking care of now. » He is less concerned about his JCJ Ruiter-Wever company, of which he is a manager. « Let those rates first happen. After Corona, the gas crisis and inflation, this is the umpteenth bizarre price increase with which we are confronted. Every time you have the feeling that your business position is under pressure, but you will also be a little immune for that over time. »

Moreover, Ruiter sees new markets: « In China, tulips were first a niche product, but now there is room for the production of bulk. We also deliver more to Eastern European countries. There is not such a tension on the market as in the US. »

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