Jim Jordan says rising cost of fireworks is somehow Joe Biden's fault

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) noted on Friday that the cost of fireworks has gone up. He baselessly blamed this on President Joe Biden.

“Want to celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks? That’ll cost you too. Thanks to President Biden of course,” Jordan tweeted.

But the article he linked to — a Reuters report titled “Boom! US consumers hit by rising prices for Fourth of July fireworks” — explicitly blamed the rising cost on pandemic-related shipping delays from China.

“All companies had to go up this year. We didn’t have a choice,” Sharon Hunnewell-Johnson, president of Galaxy Fireworks in Tampa, Florida, told the wire service, noting the shipping backlog of Chinese-made products. Most of the fireworks in the United States are imported — almost entirely from China.

CNN Business reported in June that coronavirus outbreaks in China were continuing to delay the export of goods in general, fueling backlogs and shortages.

Jordan’s attempt to pin that on Biden would appear to contradict his own frequent attacks on China, which he has blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic.

A review of the Ohio Republican’s Twitter feed finds frequent attacks on China and demands that the United States hold the country “accountable” for its actions — even before the pandemic began.

Last September, he called China “a threat to freedom,” while noting the “Republicans have a plan” to hold it accountable. He shared a GOP China Task Force report, written by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and House Republicans.

That report accused China’s government of covering up the coronavirus and allowing it to turn into a pandemic. It proposed the U.S. respond by boosting domestic production of “important technologies” and “applying heightened security for investments in U.S. companies or operations” from China.

It made it clear that Americans should not be buying so many products from China, viewing interdependence as a “vulnerability.”

Noting the nation’s treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups, the report warned “any product labeled ‘Made in China’ may be perpetuating the erasure of a people and culture in Xinjiang. Every consumer purchase is setting a precedent that the CCP’s [Chinese Community Party’s] moral vulgarity can be overlooked because it is a critical spoke in our global economy.”

Jordan’s outrage also appears to be selective. A year ago, the pandemic was even worse in the United States under then-President Donald Trump and firework prices were also higher than usual, according to CNN Business.

Alan Zoldan, Phantom Fireworks executive vice president, told the network that record fireworks sales last year “reduced the inventories not just for our company, but for the entire industry to the lowest levels on the consumer side that we’ve ever seen and created.”

Jordan posted no tweets criticizing Trump for last year’s shortages.

Regardless of the cost, people purchasing fireworks for their Independence Day celebrations should exercise great caution, according to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission.

A June report by the agency found that 18 people died from firework-related injuries in 2020 and 15,600 required hospital emergency department treatment. Both numbers were more than a 50% increase over the previous year.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.