When the initial tariff on steel was enacted, my company had to drop 2 American Mfg/suppliers and buy more product from overseas. The prices from those 2 went up over 50% since the start of the year. One of them is going out of business. The other was purchased by a Japanese company. It had been one of the oldest American owned companies in that particular industry. They still have a market outside of the USA, but their US customers are gone. They are moving their production overseas. I have been splitting the price increases with my customers so far. If things continue along the same path, I will lose $15-20K in profits compared to the previous year. Now gas prices are creeping up and the tariffs are going to 25% at the end of the year. My industry is slowing down. It has been since the start of the tariffs. The forecast for next year is not looking good. One employee and I. If things don't change, I will have to let the employee go some time next year. The worst part is I have no control to change the situation. The government is running my business now. I come in to the office, read up on the daily news and check my fax and email for product prices increases. Then I call suppliers for price quotes and product availability. Lots of backorders in the industry. Then I set my prices for the week. After that, then I can actually think about selling some product. At least my business is small and can adapt/makes changes on the fly. I have one container currently in route from China. It left on 9/7/18. It should be here any day. When the latest 10% tariff announcement was enacted a couple of weeks ago, the price on that container went up $3300.00 while it is en route. It is that way for every container that hasn't landed yet. Think about those companies that have 10, 50,100 containers on the water. That can put every company involved with that transaction in the red quickly. As with supply and demand, the product coming from other countries prices increased as well.
Last edited:
