Tristan Wright, founder and president of Lost Boy Cider, stands near his production line on Feb. 6, 2026, in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Aluminum cans rolling off Virginia cider maker Tristan Wright’s production line cost more because of increased tariffs on aluminum.
Minnesota baby product inventor and seller Beth Benike ran out of inventory and lost income for months last year when President Donald Trump sparked a trade war with China.
Maryland dog apparel producer Barton O’Brien pulled the plug on a new line of Irish-style fisherman sweaters. Importing from his manufacturers in India became unfeasible.
Pennsylvania glass and ceramic decorator Walt Rowen worries about his tariff bill each time he replenishes stock.
“If there’s one thing that’s universal in business, no matter what you’re doing, it’s that stability and calmness create a positive market,” said Rowen, a third-generation owner of Susquehanna Glass Company in eastern Pennsylvania.
But many small business owners feel anything but calm since Trump began his whiplash trade policy shortly upon starting his second term. And now they are waiting on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has been mulling since November what was supposed to be an expedited opinion on whether large shares of the president’s unilateral emergency tariffs are legal.
The Supreme Court is not scheduled to release opinions again until Feb. 20.
In a tariff impact survey to roughly 3,000 small business members from June to November 2025, the advocacy group Main Street Alliance found that 81.5% indicated they may raise prices to offset tariff costs, 41.7% reported they would delay business expansion and 31.5% said employee layoffs were likely if tariff rates remained unchanged.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated as of August that Trump’s tariff policies will cost America’s roughly 236,000 small businesses about $200 billion annually.
Tariffs are taxes paid by U.S. importers to U.S. Customs and Border Protection on goods purchased from abroad.
Trump tariffs pass one-year mark
Trump began using the novel approach of imposing tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, just over a year ago.
As the first president to use the 1970s emergency statute to trigger import taxes, Trump slapped duties in February 2025 on products from Canada, Mexico and China, pointing to a crisis of illicit fentanyl smuggling.
He next targeted global imports in April with a universal 10% import tax, adding varying “reciprocal” tariffs on goods from numerous trading partners — all due to his declared emergency on trade deficits.
A handful of small business owners, led by a New York-based wine and spirits importer, sued and won in two lower courts.
Trump appealed to the Supreme Court and was granted an expedited case.
The justices grilled the government and lawyers for the small businesses in early November on whether the president legally used the statute — which does not include the word tariffs — and if his presidential power extends to unilaterally upending trade policy.
The arguments attracted rare appearances in the courtroom from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other Cabinet members.
The case outcome will only apply to the import taxes the president imposed under his declared emergencies. Sectoral tariffs on imports on metals, critical minerals and pharmaceuticals, put in place by Trump because of national security concerns or unfair trade practices, will remain.
“We’ve been waiting on it. Nobody’s sure what really is going to happen — are they going to decide one way or another, and then what will happen?” Rowen said.
Rowen’s company, among other things, sandblasts and laser engraves glassware, mugs and tumblers found in winery tasting rooms, on restaurant tables and in university gift shops.
“If they decide that the president’s policies are legal, then we’re stuck where we’re at. Potentially, he might become emboldened to do even more. If they decide that (he) can’t then what happens? What happens to all the money that’s already been set aside?” Rowen asked.
Trump promises on tariffs
The Trump administration hails the tariffs as a windfall for the country. He’s promised the customs duties collected from U.S. businesses and other importers will, in part, help the country crawl out of its nearly $39 trillion debt.
Trump has also said tariffs will bring factories back to U.S. soil, provide for $2,000 dividend checks to taxpayers and even offset the cost of child care.
The import taxes pulled in $195 billion in 2025, up from $77 billion in 2024.
So far for fiscal year 2026, which began Oct. 1, the government has earned about $118 billion in tariffs, according to the U.S. Treasury monthly statement through Jan 31, though the report does not delineate between emergency and sectoral tariffs.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates roughly 41% of tariffs collected last year were due to those imposed under IEEPA. The office projects if tariffs are left in place, revenue will jump to $418 billion in 2026 — exceeding corporate income tax receipts for the first time since the 1930s, a high-water mark for levies on imports.
Wright, founder and president of Lost Boy Cider in Alexandria, Virginia, said the administration is “literally banking the future of the country on the tariffs.”
“They don’t have another way of getting us out of this debt situation (and) you can point all the fingers you want over the last couple of decades,” he said.
While Wright has not had to directly pay tariffs, he’s shelled out more and more money for the aluminum cans that hold his specialty cider. China is, by far, the world’s largest aluminum producer.
“We work with a lot of people that purchase internationally because they can’t get the products here. And I understand it. You know, some point in five, 10,15 years from now, maybe we have 16 aluminum plants in the country. But you don’t just snap your fingers and, like, create an aluminum plant,” Wright told States Newsroom during an interview at his cidery.
Costs to households
Economists argue that while tariffs have raised revenue, they hurt the economy by shrinking business growth and reducing consumers’ purchasing power.
“You can’t do partial accounting. How much additional income growth and business income growth did you not get because of the tariffs?” Wayne Weingarden, an economist with the pro-growth Pacific Research Institute, told States Newsroom.
“If you wanted to raise taxes, there are ways of doing it that would be less obstructive to the economy than imposing tariffs,” he said.
The Tax Foundation estimates the president’s tariffs will cost households roughly $1,300 in 2026.
“If you have $100 to spend on groceries every week and the price of coffee goes up by like $5, your grocery budget doesn’t magically increase to $105 to pay for the higher coffee price. Instead, you’re forced to make trade-offs. If I want to buy the coffee, then that means I have $5 less to spend,” said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy for the think tank, which advocates for business growth.
O’Brien, owner of the Annapolis, Maryland-based Baydog company, said he boosted his inventory of woven collars manufactured in India and dog harnesses from China to get ahead of the tariff costs.
“I have been forced, as a business owner, to borrow money and tie up all that cash in product,” he said.
“If I look at other dog harness manufacturers, the prices have gone up everywhere. We have chosen not to raise prices, but to take that money out of our own pocket. So instead of everybody paying five bucks more for a dog harness, basically everyone at Baydog makes less money, myself included,” he said in an interview with States Newsroom.
Benike, who owns 15 patents for specialty baby products including silicone dining trays with attachments for toys and sippy cups, said she had to lay off her brother and forfeit her own paycheck last year.
The owner of Busy Baby told States Newsroom in an early February interview that she delayed a shipping container of her product from China’s Guangdong province, in case the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s emergency tariffs were illegal.
“I was holding off on shipping it until that decision was made, because the difference would have been $40,000 for me,” she said.
She had to pull the trigger in mid-January as the Supreme Court continued deliberating and she began running out of product.
“I have a container that should be sitting at the port. It should be clearing customs, hopefully, like as we speak, so I’ll have a tariff bill to pay,” Benike said.
The following day she emailed to say she didn’t realize Trump had lowered the fentanyl emergency tariff on China last year during negotiations.
“So my final tariff ended up being 10% less than I expected. YAY!” she wrote.
The big ‘what if’
Shawn Phetteplace, national campaigns director for Main Street Alliance, said the advocacy organization is preparing to help its network of small business members if the Supreme Court strikes down the emergency tariffs.
“My understanding is that the things that can be done to get people’s money back is either some type of class action lawsuit, so that it forces customs and government to essentially refund the dollars,” Phetteplace said in an interview with States Newsroom. “But that process will take quite a bit of time. The other option is for individual businesses to sue the government and to recoup those costs.”
O’Brien said of the delay, “The Supreme Court has proven they can issue decisions very quickly when they want to. Every day that goes by, they’re making the mess bigger.”
In a response to States Newsroom, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an emailed statement, “President Trump promised to bring prosperity back to Main Street with an America First agenda that benefits every small business, just as he did in his first term.”
“In addition to slashing regulations and lowering energy costs, the Trump administration signed the largest Working Families Tax Cut in history to unleash unprecedented growth for small businesses with a permanent 20% tax deduction and full expensing of equipment investments,” according to Rogers’ statement.
