A really informative example of how the tariffs are wrecking the small US businesses.
Josh from Silca had designed and had built a new electric bike pump and only brought 100 in before the tariffs hit, and had to cancel his other orders but can sell internationally. He goes through the cost structure and why he just can’t compete now. He explains why he tried to have it built in the US but certain things weren’t available or what the pricing was. Importantly, even component costs are affected as the rare earth required to build magnets an essential component of every electric motor is mined in China where 90% of it comes from, and China has retaliated by restricting supplies of it.
https://youtu.be/VKz5J5PPt-Q?si=9THglqMknAqRH9n-
So it’s a US company and it can’t sell its product here. Crazy.
Another interesting thing is their aluminum pumps were made in the US buy during first Trump administration he put a hugh tariff on aluminum so the cost for the raw material Silca could get for their US factory exceeded the cost of having it manufactured in to a product in Asia and importing it as a product – without markups m
It’s pretty eye opening as to what is starting to happen to our small businesses. The bigger businesses like Apple have lobbied for and gotten exemptions.
Banks have been cited as pulling credit lines to small businesses as a result too.
by Fallingleaf333
9 Comments
This is just the beginning.
I still don’t understand. If you have a product people want/need why would they not buy it for more? Are his competitors not having challenges? Are they not charging more? If you have a unique product people in the states would still pay 600$ vs 150$
Yeah, we were going to invest in a kayak company. I trust the people and their know-how and passion, they were poised for moderate success. (it was a specialty high-end company so, wild success wasn’t going to happen, they weren’t looking to replace Dagger or something like that)
But it involved specialty work that could only be done overseas.
We had to pull out of the investment. Too much risk.
People voted for this
F Silca. Theyve been making money off things anyone can make next to nothing calling it super secret.
The shipping ports in CA and WA are reportedly near empty this weekend. It seems like the looming disaster is now at our doorstep and it’s still not being talked about much in national news. This is about to hit us hard.
This is what every economist has said. You can’t put tariffs on stuff we don’t make here. And if you then put tariffs on the materials to make the stuff here, then you double whammy industry. Instant tariffs are super dumb since a company has no chance to get their production and supply chain moved before they are having to face the tariff penalty. It would have been better to say this is the tariff going up in one year, two years, etc so a business can move if they want. And last, if the tariffs change day to day, then a business is stuck on what to do as far as future planning.
F them all. The US has been making trash for decades. Look at US cars going back to the 70s even. Its a country of peasants 43% of who still think this chimp is doing a good job. Talk to them.
Most non-US companies will just sell more of their product in Asia, Europe and Oceania. Hopefully it will bikes and parts in places like South America, NZ and Oz where they have historically not had as good access to them.