Fresh Tariff Games Are Leaving Small Businesses Dazed | Hacker News Reader

Fresh Tariff Games Are Leaving Small Businesses Dazed

bloomberg.com

22 pointspetethomas16 comments

Well that's confusing, small businesses by there very nature are local businesses and there supply chains has very little to nothing to do with internationals tariffs.

But Bloomberg has to fearmonger that's there way.

Not every small business is a lemonade stand. I bet plenty of them resell or install equipment that is manufactured overseas. For example, I recently got a quote for solar panels and batteries and the price went up just in a few day period due to tariffs. Even with everyone in the chain absorbing some of the cost, there was $1,800 left over for me to eat. The vendor seemed stressed about the situation. Were they fearmongering?

Even a lemonade stand where do you think they get their lemons? Their water pitcher? Their cups? Their freezer for making ice cubes? Most likely outside the US or from bigger US companies with supply chains reaching outside the US.

Maybe you should check your preconceptions when they don't align with actual reality, instead of accusing journalists out in the real world, collecting testimonies and observing the way things are, of lying.

Can you explain more about how local businesses necessarily use only locally-produced materials, all of which are sourced entirely locally?

I have a friend whose has a small business refinishing old furniture. He's had to increase prices because everything from tools to chemicals have new taxes / tariffs.

That makes no sense. Small businesses can get their merchandise and raw materials from anywhere in the world, just like large businesses.

No they do not. They buy from local or state distributors who are national sized companies. They may or may not buy from China and Mexico.

But no small business is buying napkins and straws directly from China.

So your claim is that only the first hop of a supply chain is affected by tariffs?

>They buy from local or state distributors who are national sized companies.

Why do you believe they're not affected by tariffs? Do you know what a tariff even is?

Maybe not restaurants, but other small businesses import directly from China. Ever heard of Alibaba?

> They buy from local or state distributors who are national sized companies. They may or may not buy from China and Mexico.

And as a result of tariffs their costs go up (or they see supply disruption, delaying orders due to uncertainty), and so they _charge more_. Like, this isn't difficult.

Small businesses are sometimes more vulnerable to this sort of disruption than large businesses, precisely because they do _not_ have much control over their supply chain; if their distributor said "we don't know if we're going to have to pay $0 or $1000 or $50,000 tax on that container of widgets when it arrives in a month, and we currently sell it for $50,000, so we're just not going to order it", then the small business is potentially kinda out of luck; even if _they_ would have been willing to take the risk on paying more for the thousandth of a container they normally buy, the distributor may not be willing to take the risk on the whole container.

1. You consistently use the wrong their. I’m calling it out because I used to do the same thing all the time and someone once told me and it made my writing better.

2. I go to a local Japanese restaurant (one location in my city) and they order their dashi directly from Japan. International tariffs will absolutely impact them. I also just ordered some historically accurate stone mortar from a small business in Pennsylvania. It’s literally a guy and his family on a farm mixing sand and lime. They import their lime directly from Peru.

These are two small businesses in both senses of the word (profit and scale) that are engaged in direct international trade.

Also, I don’t know if you realize but the internet makes ordering things from anywhere in the world pretty easy. You can get a lot of items to a port as an individual importer. Getting them through customs is another story but placing international orders is very doable for a “small business”. (I’m not even in business and I place international orders all the time that are now impacted by tariffs.)

... This is a truly bizarre take. Most small businesses would have globalised supply chains. What small businesses are you thinking of, here?

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