The reality is rarely the way politicians describe it.
It needs to be said, since tariffs significantly hurt our business. Why?
Rarely is it possible for small companies (and many times even large companies) to move all of the technology back to the US needed to manufacture a component or material. Tariffs rarely increase jobs in the US; in fact, they often put small companies out of business which destroys jobs. Another way they destroy jobs is by making materials more expensive. This forces manufacturing companies to cut jobs in order to compensate for the higher material costs. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the bottom line.
Tariffs can even force a manufacturer to move manufacturing offshore to recover some of the costs that tariffs impose.
Tariffs are no more than a tax on YOU. This is because they raise prices for manufacturers, who in turn must raise their prices to YOU. Contrary to misinformation being so widespread, they are not a charge-back to the country being tariffed. They are a tax on YOU, period.
As the incoming administration continues to play its tariff game, plan on ALL prices for our products going up accordingly. We saw this in 2019 and it will be unavoidable again.
Some say the benefit of tariffs is that they “force” manufacturing back to the USA. We already manufacture in the USA, and tariffs have hurt us in many ways since 2019. So that argument doesn’t wash. Plus, in retaliation, governments in countries like China will fund industry so they are able to continue the practice of “dumping” (selling products well below the cost of manufacture) into US markets. The result is dangerously poor quality products sold here at prices that US manufacturers cannot compete with. Please beware of this practice; it’s a no-win game.
International trade and global economy are also what has allowed developed countries to “lift up” those who may not have been born into their fortunate circumstances. And standards in many developed countries are very high. This standard forces up prices on goods made exclusively in those countries (like the USA). The gap is so wide that it is unimaginable that it will ever return to what it was 75-100 years ago. Was it sustainable? Possibly not, but it brought everyone something they needed to produce products or be lifted up by that production. Over time (meaning decades), adjustments could be made. It can’t happen in a matter of a few years–especially for small companies and countries who rely on that international trade infrastructure.
As with probably close to 100% of the products manufactured in the US, it is true for us. There is ALWAYS some content of components, materials, etc. that cannot be manufactured in the USA, even if the components, materials, etc. we have selected were designed and prototyped from here originally. Economies today are global. We are all dependent on one another, worldwide.
Out of control tariffs (which is what we are witnessing now) are nothing more than a disruption without redeemable benefit to the world economy. That’s the real bottom line.
