Georgia small businesses have mixed reactions to tariff pause
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - The sentiment around Wednesday’s news that the White House would be pausing reciprocal tariffs on most of the world, excluding China, really depended on who you were.
Local companies that import many of their materials from Europe, India, and most of the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief. President Donald Trump announced a 10% baseline tariff on products coming from those regions, giving businesses 90 days of breathing room to adjust.
Atlantucky Brewing in Castleberry Hill was thankful for it. They import their grains and aluminum for their cans from Europe and were planning to launch canned four-packs next month.
“So immediately I said ‘wow, as soon as we got our cans this is what we have to deal with,’” said owner Fish Scales, who’s also a member of the rap group Nappy Roots. “As far as grains and aluminum for the cans, that is where we think Atlantucky will be affected the most.”
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Scales started home brewing in 2017 and launched Atlantucky a few years later with hip-hop artist Skinny Deville. They’ve done events uplifting the beer community over the years and say now is the time where collaboration is needed most.
“Us being a small brewery, we’re not as affected by some of the changes being made but we are sympathetic to our partners in the beer industry that are having a harder time than we are,” he said. “We’re working hard, I’m proud of the beer community and I’m sure we’ll stick together no matter what comes our way.”
The tariff pause was welcome news on Thursday. The 90-day period will give the brewery time to launch its canned line without having to pay as much as it did the day before.
But Trump also raised China’s tariff to 145% on Wednesday and confirmed the eye-popping rate at a cabinet meeting on Thursday.
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Angela Hawkins owns BamBlu, a leisure wear and bed sheet company that uses bamboo fabric. She created the line in part because her husband suffers from a skin allergy and traditional bedsheets irritated his condition. But bamboo primarily comes from China, and now Hawkins is facing down the prospect of paying more for her tariffs than the product itself.
“I am absolutely caught in the riptide,” said Hawkins. “I’m really trying to figure out, where do we go from here?”
Hawkins said she would gladly produce her products in the U.S. and even shopped around for manufacturers. They told her they could make her designs here, but would still have to source the bamboo fabric she used from China.
“There are pieces and parts of different companies that absolutely cannot be produced here, case in point, bamboo,” she said.
With a 145% tariff in place, Hawkins will now be paying more to import her product than for the product itself. Her options: raise prices or change her fabric. She doesn’t want to do either.
“This is what we promised to give you – good quality bamboo fabrics that are going to do what bamboo is supposed to do,” Hawkins said. “It’s not an option for me to divert from what I promised my customers I would give them.”
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