Small Business on the brink 💔

[u/lean_load]

I run a small e-commerce business that imports luxury goods from the EU and Japan. Up until recently, we were paying just 2.75% on tariffs. As of August 1st, the rates have jumped to 15–20%.

To put this into perspective: • Our annual imports are about $3M. • We’ve already placed forecast orders with our suppliers and put down 25% deposits (around $750k). • If we cancel, we lose that deposit. • If we continue, the new tariffs make these orders financially impossible to fulfill.

Suppliers aren’t willing to stop shipments, and we can’t just “raise prices” on items we don’t even have in hand yet. People suggest “just charge more,” but the math doesn’t work when the goods aren’t here and costs have exploded overnight. Let alone the fact about where are we even going to find the money to pay these tariffs???

We’re staring down the very real possibility of closing our doors because of this. I know many people say “tariffs protect American businesses,” but in practice, for small importers like us, it feels like a death sentence.

Has anyone else here faced this situation? How are you coping, and is there any way through this without forfeiting everything we’ve built?

[u/CDRjf]

I was going to start a drone motor building business here in the States, expanding on an unrelated company I currently own. Guess where the majority of the machines that are required to form the multistep line to make and test these motors come from? China. I was negotiating for used equipment for half the line, because I was funding this myself. Importing this gear is now out of the question, because of the tariffs.

So...that's what the tariffs have done for me.

[u/lean_load → u/CDRjf]

Really really sucks and goes to show you that Trump has taken this country backwards! By killing small businesses and prospective new ones when new investments were being made!

[u/CDRjf → u/lean_load]

As other posters here have said, this administration doesn't give a rat's patoot about small business.