By William Stieglitz
With the end of President Donald Trump’s (R) 30-day pause for tariffs on Canada and Mexico fast approaching, TBR News Media spoke with local business owners regarding their thoughts on the tariffs. Explained simply, the tariffs would increase the cost of goods imported from each country by 25% (with energy imported from Canada taxed at 10%), a concern relevant to local businesses that rely on such goods to operate. These come in addition to other recent tariffs placed by the newest presidential administration, such as 10% levy on Chinese goods. When asked for their thoughts, both interviewees spoke first on the impact of past tariffs.
Claudia Dowling, owner of Claudia Dowling Interiors in Huntington, describes how the 2019 tariffs cost her “well over 30%” of her profit for that year. “Having written an order for a client, I felt it necessary to keep to the original pricing we agreed on. However, after the product arrived and [was] delivered, my final invoice … had one to sometimes three tariffs added.”
She elaborated how in the years since COVID–19 hit, freight costs became especially high, making it hard to turn a profit, and how this could be further inflated by new tariffs. And while larger companies can reduce these costs by relying on Amazon, she said this was not an option for smaller businesses like hers.
“I have to eliminate many vendors making it impossible to fill my store. It goes on and on. The small business community is in more trouble than ever.” While she has been in her business for 50 years, she is now concerned about staying afloat.
Howard Stern, owner of East Bay Mechanical Corp. in Yaphank, has already seen his business impacted by the separate proposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum set to start on March 12. He described how even though he relies on domestic steel, he has seen those prices already go up in response, resulting in an approximate 20% increase in his metal costs.
“It affects washing machines, it affects AC units, it doesn’t just affect the sheet metal … but everything that goes along with it, because everything requires metal and, unfortunately, it goes up but it never comes back down … even when the tariffs are lifted,” he said.
Stern also describes how tariffs affect costs at each step of the way “so by the time the end consumer gets on it, that 20% in raw material has been stepped on three to four times by four different people, so the end consumer is paying that tariff four times.”
According to both the January Navigator Research Poll and the February Harvard Caps/Harris poll, approximately three in five Americans expect new tariffs will increase costs for consumers. The Navigator polls indicate a slim majority believes tariffs will be worthwhile if they can protect American manufacturing and jobs, but also that a majority believes the tariffs will hurt American consumers more than foreign countries. Further costs to Americans could come from retaliatory tariffs too, as Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau previously promised to implement.
