After six years of tariffs, small businesses aren’t keen on Trump's plans for more
Donald Trump wants to greatly expand import duties. Entrepreneurs who weathered his first round, which Biden largely left intact, say they’d have to raise prices to survive.
With former President Donald Trump floating higher and more far-reaching tariffs if he’s elected to a new term, small businesses that sell everything from bikes to beer are nervous about another cost hike that they’d have to pass on to customers.
Chris Smith, the co-founder of Virginia Beer Co. in Williamsburg, Virginia, remembers when he first spotted a 5.5% surcharge on a statement from one of his suppliers, a U.S.-based seller of tap handles manufactured in China. The fee turned up in September 2019, after Trump placed 25% tariffs on steel, and hasn’t gone away since.
Smith spends anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 each year on tap handles emblazoned with the names of his beers — with about $1,000 of that covering the cost of the tariff. He sells them to distributors that get them placed in bars and restaurants that sell his draft beers, increasing the price to cover the tariff surcharges.
“The beer business specifically is a low-margin, high-volume business,” he said. “We don’t have the volumes that a major player has just by virtue of our size.”
Any increase in our input costs absolutely affects our profitability.
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