Small business owners due to damage caused by Trump's tariffs

Beth Benike is a mother, a veteran and a small business owner – and she sounds the alarm. “I have told all of my friends and my family that everything they want for Christmas, especially if they buy for children. If they buy baby products at all, get them here while they are gone.”

After a decade in the army, which was stationed in Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond, Benike began a busy baby, a company in Minnesota, which designs and sells bags and utensils for babies and toddlers. All of your products are made in China. And now these products of the 145% taxes of President Trump are subject to Chinese imports.

“We have products worth three months in the factory,” said Benike. “And now to get it here, we need 230,000 US dollars to have already paid the product just to get it in the country.”

“Can you afford that?” I asked.

“Oh god, no,” replied Benike.

“So what do you do?”

“First I sat on my kitchen floor and cried,” said Benike. “And when I was on the floor in the kitchen, my son came in to show me something or to tell me something, and he saw me sitting there and cried. My eight -year -old son … and he put his arms around me and hugged me just. And how, I noticed that I would not see him what we didn't see.”

The tariffs met briefly after Benike had completed a deal to sell busy baby products at Target and Walmart. To create enough stock, she took out a loan from the small business administration. “This loan is partially financed by SBA and then partially used against my house,” said Benike. “So if I can't stay in business and pay these loans, I lose the house.”

In Benike's warehouse, this remains:

As soon as this inventory was sold, Benike said: “Then we are sold out from the product. Then we are sold out. We have nothing in.”

One of the retailers Benike Supplies is Little Roo in Chaska, Minnesota. The owner Marissa kept Nordling that she had changed since the introduction of the tariffs. For the first time, she allows customers to store bustle baby registers like Benikes. In this way, family and friends can still get what they need, often removed for baby parts.

“You can no longer simply make a registration, since the products do not guarantee that it will still be on the shelf,” said Hold-Nordling. “So at this point I allow people to come in and fill a container, and they can get their colors exactly … and then I close the trash can and take this product from my website.”

While the United States and China begin trade talks, the economists still expect that most goods become more expensive – or even not in stock, from clothing to electronics to toys. According to Yale's budget laboratory, the tariffs could add almost 5,000 US dollars a year to the household costs of families.

Kyla Scanlon, an economic analyst and author of “In this economy? How money and markets really work,” said it, “It is probably a clever time to use this strange, uncertain moment to ensure that you have what you need if you do not need prices. The page that is on the side. “

I asked: “Are these tariffs necessary to restore the global economy?”

“I don't think that was necessary,” laughed Scanlon. “Target tariffs are okay. But when you tackle widespread, flat -rate tariffs everythingAnd if the price is confusing when small companies do not know how to invest, they don't know what they should spend money on – it is simply not a good economic environment. “

The legality of the Trump government implements the congress to implement tariffs will be challenged in court. President Trump says he partially imposed this tariff to bring production back to the United States

Trump replied when asked about NBC's “Meet the Press” when there was discussions about the relief of small companies: “You won't need it. You will make so much money. If You build your product here. “

But Benike says that this is impossible – that the production of your products in the USA is too expensive: “The costs for country are higher here.

It is an unsustainable situation, even for someone who is as successful as Benike. Only last week she was recognized for the success of her company – while she was worried about her survival.

“I was in DC to get my” Small Business Person of the Year “award in the chicest hotel in DC, with my son in his delightful little suit and his fly,” she said. “And I only sat there and felt defeated. Where I had loved it, that would have celebrated it, I have to prove it now.”

Nevertheless, it does not give up. It is inspired by a phrase that she recorded in the military: improvisation, adapt and overcome.

“So Plan B finds out how to become a global brand,” she said.

“And don't sell in the United States?” I asked.

“At the moment,” said Benike and added, “it will come back one day.”

“You have faith?”

“I do it. I believe. It will come back one day. It cannot last forever.”

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History produced by John Goodwin and Emily Pandise. Editor: Karen Brenner.

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