Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic reports on the sad state of small businesses in America as a result of Trump’s tariffs. Big businesses have been able to deal with it so far, although they’re losing their cushion too. But the smaller companies are in huge trouble.
Many small firms have closed down, fired workers, watched their sales fall apart, or worse. In a new survey, 71 percent of small-business owners said they expect the trade war to depress their revenue this holiday season. Only 5 percent said they were hiring and expanding their business.
The holiday season “is our Super Bowl,” Nichole MacDonald told me. “This is when we’re supposed to make all of our money.” MacDonald runs the Sash Bag, a company that manufactures and sells specialty handbags. Like many retailers, the Sash Bag generates an outsize share of its annual sales and profits leading up to Christmas. But this year, she said, she is “literally terrified.” Batches of her bags are stuck in two warehouses in India because she cannot produce the $430,000 needed to cover the import tariffs on the goods. “That product is done,” she said. “It’s sewn. It’s perfectly saleable—beautiful leather, beautiful Sash bags, sitting in India for months because I don’t have the budget to bring it here.”
In addition, she has let go some of her employees, raised prices by 10 to 15 percent, canceled special orders, and considered finding new suppliers. But “people don’t understand” how hard that is to do, MacDonald told me, when you have “your own proprietary product, not something a manufacturer has already invented or already created.”
Well, at least the oligarchs and the CEO’s are happy. That’s really all that matters.
There was a time when Republicans were the greatest advocates for small businesses which they called the engine of the American economy. The NFIB practically functioned as an arm of the party. Not anymore.
Trump doesn’t care about small businesses. They’re losers —big businesses are the winners. Maybe if they were smarter and better they’d be big too and they could “eat the tariffs” and everything would be fine.
I hope the small business owners aren’t hoping for any relief from Trump.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!