Sell everything, from wedding dresses to cocoa beans, small local businesses in Anchorage that obtain or manufacture their products from abroad, feel the pinch and uncertainty of the global tariffs of the Trump administration of the Trump administration.
In Alaska, where operating costs are already above average, land transport must pass through another country and almost 80% of the more than 75,000 owners of small companies in the state are unique, tariffs are particularly challenging, said Jon Bittner, executive director of the Alaska small businesses Development Center.
“At almost all levels, this is hitting us where Bittner said. Small businesses “do not have the same reservations or ability to absorb massive shocks to the system in a short period of time as a larger company can do it.”
According to a recent survey of about 200 small businesses throughout the state, 70% said suppliers had increased the cost of their assets, Bittner said. The sixty percent said they had to increase their own costs as a result.
On April 2, President Donald Trump announced A 10% reference tariff for all nations that import goods to the United States, with higher reciprocal rates applied individually for certain commercial partners with which the United States has “the highest commercial deficits,” according to the White House. Those included A 20% rate for the European Union, 34% for China, 24% for Japan and 46% for Vietnam, among others.
Seven days later, the Trump Administration suspended reciprocal tariffs until July all nations except China. Since then, the United States and China have been wrapped in a Tit-For Tat tariff war. At the end of April, the United States had imposed a 145% Import tax on Chinese products, and China responded with a 125% tariff on US imports. Then TuesdayThe United States Secretary of the United States, Scott Besent, called the Tariff War with unsustainable China and said he hopes uncalared, but a negotiation timeline is still clear.
Meanwhile, small businesses in Anchorage say their prices, and products, are in limbo as a result.
“It feels like a video game,” said Virginia Peterson, owner of a brand of underwear and clothing called Swoop whose products sells online and in local markets. Peterson designs its garments and manufactures them in China. “Every morning I wake up and it’s like, ok, what decisions they made yesterday. It’s a terrifying moment for us.”
Currently, Peterson is waiting in his spring clothing line to send from a manufacturing warehouse in China, where pingponging prices have delayed shipping for more than a month. He has already had to renegotiate prices three times since February, when Trump initially announced 20% of tariffs About China to press an offensive against fentanyl smuggling.
Peterson said that one of its manufacturers is willing to divide the cost of the rate with it, and that it can absorb at least part of the remaining cost. But the planning of an upcoming summer market circuit becomes challenging without knowing its price structure.
“The question is: people are going to pay for what I’m going to have to charge?” She said.
In Bateau Bridal Boutique in Spenard, tariffs have already impacted the store inventory, said owner Tara Gondek.
Of the seven nuptial designers of the store, most are headquarters in the United States, with factories in Asia. Compared to prices prior to the rate, Bateau is paying 20% to 30% more in the garments that come from China, Gondek said, compensated by designers who cover a substantial part of the price increase.
“The nuptial designers are trying to absorb as many cost possible … and then they will pass that cost to the owners of small businesses that buy those products,” Gondek said. “So we will have to absorb part of that cost, but unfortunately, we cannot absorb everything. A part of that will have to go to consumers.”
While the store has an “off the rack” inventory of dresses with prices prior to the rate, consumers will see between an import price of 10% and 30% added in certain dresses, Gondek said.
The small business owner, Calisa Schouweiler, Kastning, said Trump’s tariffs not only affect stores and customers, but the entire community. He directs two small stores from a rented storage unit: a home store store and a baby store called Skogsbarn, and another design company that performs botin or custom prizes for companies and events, such as standing racing t -shirts.
From alaska animals enamel to 3,000 hats for an organized event, Schouweiler Kastning creates its own designs and has its products manufactured in China, India and Pakistan, he said.
She said that a rate of almost 150% on China’s assets “would sink absolutely” of their businesses. Until now, Schouweiler Kastning has avoided taxes working with its manufacturers to follow a certain exception called Minimis, which allows goods of less than $ 800 to be sent without import taxes. But the Trump administration It will close That escape from May 2.
“I think the average consumer does not even realize how many products are made abroad,” said Schouweiler Kastning. If stores cannot pay small businesses in the state, he said, he could have a great economic impact.
“The support of a small business has this drip effect in the community … which I think the average person is like, ‘Oh, this does not affect me,” said Schouweiler Kastning. “But it actually affects more people than one realizes.”
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It is not just China’s tariffs that have impacted local businesses. Earlier this month, the local chocolate owner and business owner Suzanne Bostrom was obtaining cocoa grains from a seller in Fiji, Indonesia. She and her partner run her chocolate business, Wildland Chocolate, from a commercial kitchen attached to her home. They were told that the 32% import tax on Indonesian goods would be transmitted, he said.
“One day was 32%, it was now reduced to 10%, but they could rise again at any time,” said Bostrom.
Cocoa grains are still waiting for shipping.
“We are not totally sure when we are going to carry cocoa beans to the United States and what the price will be,” said Bostrom, “because this goal has been in motion.”