During a blitz of interviews with the president’s favorite love-hate partner, the media, President Donald Trump offered one particular insight into the inner workings of his tariff strategy: The country’s millions of small businesses are not a priority.
During an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, in addition to taking credit for the “good parts” of the economy and blaming former President Joe Biden for the “bad parts” and parroting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) by arguing that children only need “three dolls or four dolls” rather than 30, Trump set fire to the argument presented by his supporters that the fundamental objective of his tariffs is to make the nation wealthy.
After pointing out that small businesses are being hurt by tariffs on China, Welker asked the president whether he is considering “tariff relief for small businesses.”
Trump’s answer?
“Why do you always mention that? You know, you pick up a couple of little businesses. What about the car business? They’re going to make a fortune because of the tariffs,” he said before rambling on about support from automobile unions and then arguing that small businesses won’t need any relief because “they’re going to make so much money if you build your product here.”
Unfortunately, unlike the Trump administration, small business owners have to live in economic reality. Even if we set aside tariffs on Chinese products, since there is a reasonable argument to be made in favor of economic decoupling from our adversary, and accept the 10% tariffs on all other countries (including our free trade partners), do these small businesses have years or even months to wait for the promised Trump bucks to start rolling in?
After all, the profit margins of most industries are well under 10%, the increase of prices imposed by the worldwide tariff rate. According to New York University’s Stern School of Business, the net profit margin across all industries is 8.67%. It’s 4.6% for general retail, 2.11% for home furnishings, and 5.62% for general electronics. Even if, in the hypothetical future the Trump administration is going to usher in any day now, these companies could buy their supplies from American sources for the same price (or less), it will take years for these supply chains to be developed.
What happens in the meantime? The millions of small business owners who put Trump back in the White House will go out of business.
When the tariff chaos began, and the markets started looking like a Six Flags roller coaster, many of Trump’s loyal supporters declared that this was a much-needed reconfiguration of the American economy that would put “Main Street over Wall Street.” But that was a lie.
RETAILERS BEGIN FEARING ABOUT IMPACT TRUMP’S TARIFFS WILL HAVE ON CHRISTMAS
Meanwhile, vast fortunes are passing through the hands of large corporations and their lobbyists to “encourage” the Trump administration to give them special treatment. Just a few weeks ago, Apple regained its $3 trillion market cap after it was announced that its profitable products would be exempted from new tariffs.
Will your local hardware store owner get the same treatment? Of course not. Despite the everyman cosplaying of the billionaires running this administration, money still talks.
Ian is a syndicated columnist. Follow him on X (@ighaworth) or Substack.