Tariff-hit small businesses fear getting crushed by corporate rivals

“This is going to put people out of business,” said an entrepreneur in East Atlanta Village, a fiercely independent commercial district in a city anchored by big brands.

ATLANTA — Nate Minor doesn’t want to slash his workers’ health benefits to pay for HDMI ports, but he’s afraid he might have to.

The owner of a device repair shop called ScreenFixing, Minor has weathered the past decade’s upheavals pretty well. Despite the pandemic and the inflation roller coaster, he expanded his services from fixing phones to doctoring up laptops and gaming consoles, too. Sales have grown 10% to 15% per year, and he’s made enough money to offer all four of his employees health insurance.

But President Donald Trump’s expanding trade war threatens those gains, Minor said, especially the 145% tariffs on goods from China, where his supplier sources nearly all the screens, microchips and other gadget parts ScreenFixing relies on. Trump recently exempted consumer electronics from import taxes but said the reprieve would be temporary, and his administration is already preparing fresh tariffs on chips.