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Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily Meets on the BBC World Service.

Today, as millions of households around the world

are putting up their trees to celebrate the joy of Christmas. I grew up celebrating Christmas

with real trees. Sometimes we'd cut them down. Yeah, we're hearing from Mack Harmon. He's the

founder and CEO of Balsam Hill. It's one of the leading artificial Christmas tree companies in the world.

They had bought an artificial tree probably in 1975 or something like that. And I always looked at it and said,

I've got to think we can have artificial trees, faux trees, that look better than this.

This year, the company's biggest market has been facing a very

modern Christmas crisis. Almost everything we sell in these Western markets is made somewhere else

and imported, but so many of those goods came into the United States with these tariffs of 19, 20%, 30%

and 50%.

Battling for Christmas this year, that's Mack Harmon on Business Daily from the BBC

World Service.

We like to think of ourselves as the leading brand of Christmas decor in the Western world.

We do hundreds of millions in revenue.

For Mac, the business of Christmas trees began early as a kid growing up in Ohio with an

entrepreneurial dad running a series of small businesses there. I grew up celebrating Christmas with

real trees. Sometimes we'd cut them down. I guess actually once we cut it down,

and I remember thinking as a kid, that was kind of a neat experience. I mean, my dad was in the snow

on his knees and his hands with a saw. It was kind of a fun experience, but I'm like, I don't

think we need to do that twice. And I grew up around that watching him make decisions and watching

...