’Nowhere to turn’: Small businesses dependent on imports from China are
feeling more desperate
[April 29, 2025] By
MAE ANDERSON
NEW YORK (AP) — Major orders canceled. Containers of products left
stranded overseas. No roadmap for what comes next.
The Trump administration raised tariffs on goods from China to 145% in
early April. Since then, small business owners who depend on imports
from China to survive have become increasingly desperate as they eye
dwindling inventory and skyrocketing invoices.
President Donald Trump seemed to back down somewhat last week when he
said he expected the tariffs to come down “substantially.” That helped
set off a rally in the stock market. But for small businesses that
operate on razor-thin margins, the back and forth is causing massive
upheaval. Some say they could be just months from going out of business
altogether.
The Massachusetts family-owned game company
Game makers are particularly susceptible to the tariffs since the
majority of games and toys sold in the U.S. are made in China, according
to The Toy Association.
WS Game Co., based in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, is a
family-owned business that licenses Hasbro board games like Monopoly,
Candy Land and Scrabble and creates deluxe versions of them. Its most
popular line of games come in boxes that look like vintage books and
sell for $40.
The company’s games were featured in Oprah’s Favorite Things list in
2024 and sold in 14,000 stores in North America, from big national
chains to mom-and-pop stores, said owner Jonathan Silva, whose father
founded the company in 2000.
All of WS Game’s production is done in China. The tariffs have brought
the past 25 years of healthy growth to a screeching halt.
Over the past three weeks, WS Game has had three containers of finished
games, worth $500,000, stranded in China. It lost orders from three of
the largest U.S. retailers totaling $16 million in business. And there’s
not much Silva can do about it.
“As a small business, we don’t have the runway or the capabilities to
move manufacturing on a whim,” said Silva, who has 22 employees. He said
the tariffs have “disrupted our business and put us on the verge of
insolvency” and estimates he has about a four-month runway to stay
afloat if nothing changes.
“We’re really hoping that cooler heads prevail,” he said.
Artificial flowers in Kentucky
Jeremy Rice co-owns House, a home-décor shop in Lexington, Kentucky,
that specializes in artificial flower arrangements for the home. About
90% of the flowers his business uses are made in China.
Rice uses dozens of vendors. The largest are absorbing some of the cost
of the tariffs and passing on the rest. One vendor is raising prices by
20% and another 25%. But Rice is expecting smaller vendors to increase
prices by much higher percentages.
House offers mid-range artificial flowers. A large hydrangea head will
retail for $10 to $16, for example. China is the only place that
manufacturers higher quality silk flowers. It would take a vendor years
to open a factory in a different country or move production somewhere
else, Rice said.
[to top of second column] |
 Rice ordered his holiday décor early
this year. But even after stocking up ahead of the tariffs, he only
has enough everyday floral inventory in to last two to three months.
“After that, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said.
Rice is concerned that the trade war will wipe out a bunch of
mom-and-pop stores, similar to what happened in the Great Recession
and the pandemic.
“There’s nowhere to turn, there’s nothing to do,” he said.
Tea in Michigan
A tea shop in a Michigan college town is also caught in the middle
of the ongoing tariff fight.
“It’s basically just put a big pit in my stomach,” said Lisa
McDonald, owner of TeaHaus, located in Ann Arbor, home to the
University of Michigan. McDonald has owned TeaHaus for nearly 18
years and sells tea to customers across the U.S.
Americans drank about 86 billion servings of tea in 2024, according
to the Tea Association of the U.S.A.. Almost all of that is imported
since tea isn’t grown in the U.S. at scale, due to factors ranging
from climate to cost.
McDonald imports loose-leaf tea from China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka
and other countries. She says her customer base is “from all over
the U.S. and the world." But she worries there is a limit to what
they’ll spend. Her premium teas can cost up to $33 for a 50-gram
bag.
“I don’t think I can charge $75 for a 50-gram bag of tea, no matter
how amazing that tea is,” she said.
McDonald understands Trump’s rationale for wanting to use tariffs to
spur U.S. manufacturing but says it doesn’t apply to the tea
industry.
“We can’t grow tea in the U.S. to the extent that we need. We can’t
just flip the industry and ‘make tea great again’ in America. It
just can’t happen,” she said.
Car accessories in Oklahoma
Jim Umlauf’s business, 4Knines, based in Oklahoma City, makes
vehicle seat covers and cargo liners for dog owners and others. To
do so, he needs raw materials such as fabric, coatings and
components from China.
Umlauf has explored manufacturing in countries other than China
since 2018, when Trump first instituted a 25% tariff on goods from
China, but has run into complications. In the meantime, 4Knines
absorbs the extra cost, which Umlauf says has limited its growth and
squeezed its margins.
Now, the new tariffs make it nearly impossible to do business. The
demand is there, but the company can’t afford to bring over more
products.
“We only have a limited amount of inventory left, and without some
relief, we’ll run out soon,” Umlauf said.
As a small business owner who has worked hard to develop a
high-quality brand, create jobs and contribute to the community,
Umlauf is frustrated. He has tried to contact the White House and
other decision-makers to ask for small business support. But he's
gotten zero response.
“It’s time for policymakers to consider the full impact of trade
policies not just on stock prices or global competitiveness, but on
the real people running small businesses,” he said.
___
AP Videographer Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this
report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
