President Donald Trump’s Tariffs Affecting Small Businesses Across The Country

By Sierra Campbell, Managing Editor for small.news

(small.news) — Small businesses across the United States are feeling the affects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Despite the fact that larger corporations are also feeling these tariffs, according to CNBC, small business owners are the ones struggling. Material Kitchen is a small business that sells kitchenware and the CEO, Eunice Byun, told the news outlet, “We’ve definitely taken it on the chin year-over-year in terms of our top line revenue.”

Another small business owner, Anjali Bhargava (who owns Anjali’s Cup) said, “It’s been really frustrating because I don’t have the resources to stockpile.”

According to data from the Small Business Administration, there are around 36 million small businesses in the country, which is around 43% of the United States GDP.

Supreme Court Could Ban Trump’s Tariffs

On Wednesday, Nov. 5, the Supreme Court justices listened to arguments about Trump’s tariffs to decide whether they are legal or not. According to ABC News, if they decide that the tariffs are illegal, customs officials could have the task of returning the over $90 billion in revenue that has already been collected.

Members on Wednesday did seem skeptical that Trump had all of the authority on tariffs, but some did seem as though they would be willing to give him some flexibility. While this process could result in money being given to businesses, it might be delayed (or never happen) depending on what the Supreme Court decides.

Ernie Tedeschi, a nonresident senior fellow from The Budget Lab at Yale University, said, “What consumers need to know if that those refunds go to businesses, not consumers.”

A senior attorney from the Pacific Legal Foundation, Oliver Dunford, warned that a complicated refund process could harm small business owners who have limited resources to file claims.

He told ABC News, “Maneuvering these kinds of issues is relatively a lot cheaper for the big businesses. It’s the small businesses that have to spend more of their time, more of their capital, certainly as a percentage on dealing with these kinds of regulations and changing rules and things like that.”