Tariffs Leave Businesses ‘Constantly Dealing With Uncertainty’
President Donald Trump’s 90-day tariff pause is of cold comfort to some U.S. businesses.
As Reuters reported Saturday, businesses ranging from toy stores to lip balm makers to concert halls are all feeling the effect of the levies, whether it means increased service costs or a jump in the price of goods.
“We’re constantly dealing with the uncertainty of the future and of our future supply chains,” said Steve Shriver, the founder and CEO of Eco Lips, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, health and beauty company that sources ingredients from more than 50 countries, selling its products in 40,000 stores around the country.
On the day Trump announced the tariff pause, Shriver wrote to 300 clients, letting them know Eco Lips was raising prices.
“I don’t trust it. It’s a 90-day pause. It could change again in 10 days,” Shriver said. “There are still 10% tariffs across the board, and that’s a substantial addition to our prices.”
He projected that his yearly cost of goods could climb by $5 million, in addition to the $10 million Eco Lops usually spends on things like ingredients that cannot be grown in the U.S., such as vanilla, coconut oil and cacao.
Other businesspeople interviewed by Reuters said they were worried about ongoing economic turbulence, saying they have canceled purchase orders, or delayed hiring and expansion plans.
Aisha Ahmad-Post, the executive director for the Newman Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Denver, told Reuters the tariffs have crimped her organization’s plans to replace the 971 chairs in one of its concert halls.
“The chairs are already in production, it’s not like we can just pivot,” Ahmad-Post said. “Now we’re stuck trying to figure out how we’ll pay for this.”
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown that close to 20% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are pessimistic about their odds of survival over the next five years.
That research — from the report “Brewing Storm: Why 1 in 5 Smaller Businesses Without Financing Fear They May Not Survive Tariffs” — found that 7% of all SMBs — and 13% of SMBs without access to financing — said they were unlikely to make it through the next two years.
These businesses were surveyed between Feb. 5 and Feb. 12, when the White House had introduced tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico but before many countries announced retaliatory levies and a global trade war kicked off.
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