President Donald Trump's trade and tariff policies are sending shockwaves through the economy not just on Wall Street and for big corporations, but for small businesses, too.
Scripps News spoke with Walt Rowen, president of the Susquehanna Glass Company, about how policies from Washington are affecting smaller businesses, which often already operate on slim margins.
"Pretty much anybody that is going to be affected by tariffs are going to raise prices," Rowen said. "Very, very few companies, especially small businesses who deal in smaller margins to begin with, just don't have the excess capital to just absorb that extra — even if it's 10%. That's a big number for an awful lot of people. Most small businesses are working on a 5% margin, if that. So it's something they cannot just absorb."
The reach of tariffs, Rowen said, was a surprise to some business owners.
"All of us have been surprised by the extent to which some of his more extreme policy positions that a lot of people were saying, 'well, that's not going to happen' or 'it's going to be modified' or 'they're gonna use that as a bargaining tool.' Certainly the tariff is probably the major one for all businesses and just the level of uncertainty because pricing is so integral and planning is tied to pricing. If you don't know how much something is going to cost, then you can't plan in terms of when you're going to bring it in. You don't know how much you're going to sell of the item because if it's going to be more expensive than it was last year, it will affect how much you'll sell this year. So most of the small business folks that we talked to are just in a real — just uncertain times, which for business people is just difficult."
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And at least some of that uncertainty gets passed to the consumer.
"If a product is coming from China, the recommended or the talked about tariff right now is 145%," Rowen said. "That means that that product likely will double or potentially triple in price as it goes out to the consumer. So as a retailer, if you're looking at that as a possibility, you're going to say 'I might just not carry that item. I cannot afford the uncertainty of whether it will sell at that higher price.' So what is going to be available to the consumer and at what price is still highly uncertain. Think about toys. Think about food. Think about automotive products. It's across the board."
Watch the full interview with Rowen in the video above.
