{"id":47818,"date":"2025-07-08T04:56:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T04:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/47818\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T04:56:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T04:56:15","slug":"tariff-uncertainty-causes-real-pain-for-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/47818\/","title":{"rendered":"Tariff uncertainty causes real pain for small businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, July 9, is supposed to be the day tariffs are reimposed<\/a> after a 90-day pause. Trading partners have started getting letters from the White House \u2014 including Japan and South Korea, where a new 25% tariff on goods from those countries will begin next month. But as has happened time and again during this tariff back and forth, Wednesday is no longer necessarily the date<\/a> to get a definitive understanding of how tariffs will shake out. Trump officials are signaling that August 1st is, possibly, the new deadline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One might think, \u2018Well, that\u2019s a relief. At least there\u2019s more room for negotiation.\u2019 But for business owners, the uncertainty is starting to have a real impact.<\/p>\n

Back in May<\/a>, shoe company Deer Stags<\/a> had to stop a shipment of $1 million worth of men\u2019s boots and dress shoes because President Trump had raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%<\/a>. For Deer Stags, that meant lost sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have the inventory we needed to make sales. So our sales in April, May, June were depressed,\u201d said the company\u2019s president Rick Muskat.<\/p>\n

He eventually got the shoes with a lower tax of 30%. But between the loss in sales and higher costs, Muskat has had to pull back on business investments, including the launch of a new branding strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cut back spending on advertising and marketing. We paused any capital investment in software systems we were considering because we had to preserve cash,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Businesses have been operating with uncertainty for months now. They\u2019ve been in a holding pattern. And now the pain is starting to show up.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelayed investment can first become non-investment. Those are dollars not being injected in the real economy,\u201d said Scott Lincicome, vice president of economics and trade at the Cato Institute.<\/p>\n

Less advertising, less hiring, and less building and construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, companies don\u2019t grow,\u201d Lincicome said.<\/p>\n

Nicole Panettieri, who owns The Brass Owl<\/a> and The Tiny Owl in New York City, is less worried about not growing and more worried about shrinking. Her women\u2019s and kids\u2019 boutiques had a terrible June. She thinks customers are hunkering down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw about a 20% decrease in June, which I\u2019ve never seen. In the 11 years I\u2019ve been in business, I\u2019ve never seen a drop like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

If the sales slump continues, Panettieri has some hard decisions to make.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the future holds and because there\u2019s so much uncertainty we\u2019re pulling back hours and possibly staffing for the fall,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said she may have to close one of her stores to reduce expenses.<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday, July 9, is supposed to be the day tariffs are reimposed after a 90-day pause. Trading partners…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":47819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,36781,79,36778,36779,36780,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-47818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-business-investment","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-small-business-owners","12":"tag-tariff-policy","13":"tag-uncertainty","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114815840504647267","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}