As three of the largest US retailers — Walmart, Home Depot and Target — this week warned President Trump that his tariff policy could empty store shelves within weeks, upend supply chains and raise consumer prices, the tariffs already in place on imported goods are having effects on those who make things in America, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. US manufacturers are sharing their stories of increased cost pressures and uncertainty, both the result of new tariffs. Makers of everything from machinery to bicycles to food service equipment are reporting ill effects. For Craig Souser, President and CEO of robotic packaging solutions manufacturer JLS Automation in York, Pennsylvania, steel tariffs in particular have had a big — and negative — effect on business.
“We’re seeing increased costs [in steel] that will eventually get passed along to the customer,” Souser told the York Dispatch.
Chuck Dardas, President and Chief Operating Officer of Michigan automotive parts manufacturer AlphaUSA, told NHK News recently that his small business and others like it are the ones “writing the checks for” the new tariffs — and it’s not something they can keep up.
“To absorb 25 percent or 50 percent in tariffs, it’s a task that we cannot in the long term endure,” Dardas said. “It’ll cause our company and many other companies our size to probably go out of existence.”
Perhaps the hardest part about the new tariffs is the uncertainty they bring, NAM board member Lisa Winton, CEO and co-owner of Georgia-based machinery maker Winton Machine Company, told NPR earlier this month. “We just noticed our first invoice that had a tariff line on it,” she said. “There’s just so much unknown right now, and I think that’s the most difficult thing — to make decisions for your company financially when you just don’t know all the pieces to the puzzle.”
Meanwhile, US box shipments for the first quarter of 2025 were the lowest since 2009, according to the Fibre Box Association.
https://boardconvertingnews.com/nam-manufacturers-share-impacts-under-latest-tariffs/
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