Trump trade war with China disrupts US small businesses

Donald Trump has jeopardised the future of small and independent businesses in the US with the escalation of his tariffs on Chinese imports.

Trump: jeopardising small business with his China trade war

As of 18 April, 2025, the US has imposed tariffs of up to 245% on certain Chinese imports to the country, stoking fears of a global recession. This has come after China refused to back down over Trump’s efforts to assert US dominance over global trade.

When individuals or businesses buy from a foreign seller, the Customs and Border Protection charges a tariff as a percentage.

The average tariff on Chinese imports is now at 124.1%. This is already six times higher than when the second Trump administration began on January 20, 2025.

This means that for independent US businesses that rely on supplies from Chinese companies, things are already getting very expensive.

Jane Richardson is the owner of Very Important Pet Mortuary in Santa Monica. For the last 12 years, she has been offering private pet cremation services for pet owners in Los Angeles.

She returns pet ashes alongside clay paw prints to customers in a cedarwood chest, which comes from China.

Richardson said:

During Trump’s first term in the White House, a case of small cedar wood chests already went up from $368 to $466.

Now, prices are set to skyrocket, leaving her feeling very uncertain about the future of her business.

Her initial reaction was to try to order as many chests as she could before tariffs were implemented. However, as a small business, cash flow did not allow it.

Richardson has looked into buying cedar chests from American companies. However, they are not the same quality and are “twice as expensive”. She cannot pass that cost onto her customers.

She said:

The stress of not knowing what I’m going to wake up to every morning in terms of just surviving as a small business. It’s very scary.

Costs surged by over 50%

Mirai Clinical is a direct-to-consumer brand based in Nevada. It sells deodorising soaps, body washes, personal care wipes, and more. Most of its manufacturing is done in the US and Japan. However, 30% of the company’s products are made in China.

Following the 145% reciprocal tariff by the Trump administration, Mirai Clinical’s Chinese manufacturing costs “surged by over 50%”. Additionally, it also has to pay a 7.5% Section 301 tariff and various other miscellaneous customs fees, meaning the total duty is well over 150%.

Andy Wang, supply chain manager, said:

As a small business, these increases have had a dramatic financial impact on both our margins and pricing.

However, unlike other businesses, Mirai Clinical has been able to start diversifying its supply chain to manufacturers outside of China.

‘We’ve survived worse’

Sebastian Sassi is the VP of Sales at Atlantic Vision, a US company that supplies fibre optics hardware to Data Centres. Its raw materials come from China, meaning that right now, prices are constantly changing with a “Tweet or a Trump social post”.

A critical component of data centres is fibre optic patch cords.

Surprisingly, through Chinese suppliers, Atlantic Vision can deliver the same high-quality product for just $4 versus $14 domestically. So even if tariffs double the price, it’s still cheaper.

According to Sassi, the net increase on imported fibre optic products is currently 145% above what it was before this administration. This means the total tariff is now around 179%.

Ultimately, Atlantic Vision is having to increase its prices by between 30 and 40%.

However, Sassi said that this is an industry-wide problem, because:

There’s no such thing as an Asia-free fibre optic network.

Sassi said that whilst the tariffs are “disruptive” and “causing customers quite the headache”, Atlantic Vision has “survived worse”. He said: “Business operations will continue as before.”