Drowning in tariffs, American businesses try to stay afloat
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One way to tell the story of a trade war is through a curved piece of silicone called the frywall. Frywall keeps the sizzle in the pan and the splatter off of you and your stovetop. That is the inventor of the frywall, Yair Reiner, on Shark Tank back in 2018.

Reiner priced out what it would cost for him to produce his invention in the U.S. and figured to turn a profit, he'd have to sell a made-in-the-USA frywall for about 80 bucks. You know, it's really hard to sell a splatter guard for that much money. Even the best splatter guard in the world is not going to sell for $80. Precisely. It is the best splatter guard in the world, but, you know, splatter just is not as important as other things. So he makes it in China, which allows him to sell it for about $25.

And he says that money gets spread around to many parts of the U.S. economy. It goes to the U.S. Postal Service, which provides my quote-unquote free shipping. If I sell on Amazon, it goes to Amazon. It has to pay its warehouse workers. I also have to pay my patent attorney so that my patent is protected and I can't get ripped off. It has to go to PR. It has to go to marketing.

It has to go to the software firms that I use to operate and run my business. But now President Trump has put a 145 percent tariff on goods from China. At least that's the number as we record this Thursday afternoon. It's been a moving target. I've worked hard to have a stable price on my product for almost 10 years. And now I'm looking at a situation where I'm going to have to raise it by 20, maybe 25 percent, maybe more tariffs.

I'm not sure if I still have a market at that point. I don't know if I still have a business. And so if that's going to be the case for the foreseeable future, for the next four years, where does that leave you? It leaves me making plans from week to week, which is not the way that they teach you to run a business, either at your parents' table or in business school.

And there are a lot of Yair Reiners out there. Business owners riding the roller coaster as Trump's tariffs have been rolled out, ratcheted up, and partially walked back. We're going to have to scale back a lot of innovation. We just noticed our first invoice had a tariff line on it. I have hopes that tariffs will help us, but that can't be the end game. ♪

Consider this. Trump's tariff plans affect nearly every company in America. We'll hear from a few business owners about what it means for them. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. Support for NPR and the following message come from Betterment, the automated investing and savings app. CEO Sarah Levy shares how Betterment utilizes tech tools powered by human advice. Betterment is here to help customers build wealth their way.

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It's Consider This from NPR. Lisa Winton runs exactly the type of business that the Trump administration says its tariffs are supposed to help. I'm a small manufacturer in Georgia, and I produce machinery. Winton Machine Company makes metal parts that go into everything from refrigerators to lawn chairs. And most of the company's supply chain is in the U.S.,

But some of Lisa Winton's distributors get their parts from China, and they've started passing along the cost of tariffs to her. So I have to purchase, I have to place my order, and then when I place my order, they'll let me know what my tariff fee is. Oh, so you might say, I've got $500 to spend on this, or $5,000, or whatever. And then when the bill comes in, you see tacked onto it is a tariff fee that could put this way outside of your budget. You just don't know. I don't know. It's uncertainty. It's uncertainty.

And, you know, with uncertainty also goes we ship all over the world. So if there's additional tariffs put on my machinery to export, that's going to be very painful. Have you heard from anyone who has said, you know what, I was going to buy from China, but given the situation with the tariffs, I think I would rather buy from Winton Machine instead. Like, is this going to help you in that respect?

We do benefit from manufacturers that say, I want to buy American-made machinery. There's just so much unknown right now, and I think that's the most difficult thing to make decisions for your company financially when you just don't know all the pieces of the puzzle. I hear a lot of caution in your voice, but I can't quite tell whether you're cautiously optimistic or cautiously pessimistic right now.

I think the glass is half full and I've taken a few sips. Some businesses have to worry about tariffs on one country. Ethan Frisch has to worry about tariffs on 30 different countries. We work with producers in Vietnam, in Sri Lanka, in Tanzania, in Guatemala, in Afghanistan, in Turkey. He's co-founder and co-CEO of a spice company called Burlap and Barrel.

They've spent years developing relationships with small farmers. Yesterday, Trump paused global tariffs at 10% for 90 days on every country but China. But 10% is still a price hike, and nobody knows what'll happen three months from now. We can't just switch our supplier from Vietnam to another country with a lower tariff rate.

because that variety of cinnamon simply doesn't grow anywhere else. Burlap and Barrel has decided that even with these tariffs, they won't charge customers more or pay farmers less. We're going to make less money ourselves. That's the bottom line. At the end of the day, we're going to have to scale back a lot of innovation. We launch about 50 new products every year. We had an advent calendar slated for production this year. That was going to involve custom packaging from China and 24 different spices from all around the world. We scrapped that project immediately, just as an example.

And these tariffs have made Ethan Frisch face another big change that's hard to put a number on. The farmers that we work with everywhere in rural areas, in Vietnam and Guatemala and Tanzania, they understand that the U.S. is a great destination for their crops. But also the personal pride that goes into knowing that this product is going to American consumers will appreciate it. Do you think this changes what America represents to them now? A hundred percent. It has already changed what America represents to them now.

I think America was framed as a positive trading partner. And I think the trust that underpinned that is significantly eroded already. Well, growing exotic spices in the U.S. might be impossible, but shrimp swim in American waters. My name is Craig Reeves.

I'm in Beaufort, South Carolina, and I'm a lifelong commercial shrimper. So is his dad, and the trend lines have been clear for decades. I'm 54, so for my life, it's been a trend down. And, you know, the last 20 years has been in a steep decline. His wild-caught shrimp just can't compete on price with the farm-raised shrimp from countries like India and Vietnam —

So last week, when Trump first announced tariffs of 26% on India, 46% on Vietnam and more, Reeves was overjoyed. Ecstatic, you know, overwhelmed that somebody's finally standing up against unfair trade practices. And yesterday, when he said for 90 days, tariffs on every country but China would be frozen at 10%, that's a lot lower than what you were expecting just last week.

So I've tried to consistently say since the very beginning that tariffs is not, it's a short-term gain, it's a short-term help. My hope is not in 50% or 100% tariffs or whatever's negotiated. If it's 10% tariffs,

My goal is that the consumer gets to choose whether they buy domestic shrimp or imported shrimp. Instead of being a consuming nation, we need to be a producing nation. You're 54, so it's safe to say you've got more working years behind you than you have ahead of you. What is your hope for where the industry will be by the time you retire? Wow.

I'm at a stage in my life where I really want to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren, for them to have an opportunity to make a living from the sea. And that's at risk right now. Like every American business owner right now, in choppy waters, he's just trying to figure out how to stay afloat. ♪

This episode was produced by Mallory Yu and Connor Donovan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.

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