New Dems Hear how Small Businesses have been Hurt by Trump's Tariffs

Last month, New Dems met with small business owners and industry representatives to learn more about how the Trump Administration’s sweeping tariffs have made every aspect of their operations more difficult and raised prices on working Americans. Two of these small business owners, Sarah Wells, Owner and Founder of Sarah Wells Bags, a breast pump bag consumer brand based out of Fairfax, VA, and Eva St. Clair, Co-Founder and Owner of Princess Awesome, an e-commerce family clothing brand based out of Washington, DC shared their experiences in a newly released video.See below for a full transcript of the video, which features New Dem Trade and Tariffs Task Force Chair Don Beyer (VA-08), and includes personal stories from both Sarah Wells and Eva St. Clair about how Trump’s tariffs have made this past year one of their most difficult since opening their businesses.Sarah Wells: No matter what I do, trying to do the right thing as an American small business employing Americans, it seems like the tariffs just keep chasing me down.Rep. Don Beyer: We just had a really fascinating hour and a half with small business leaders about their trade experiences and what tariffs have meant to them, and the stories were horrifying.Eva St. Clair: It has been one of the most difficult years in the history of our company, and we’ve been in business 13 years. We had to pay for the tariffs out of pocket, we had no runway to pay for that, which meant that my co-owner and I never got paid for several months. We went without our salaries, which directly impacted our families, obviously and our livelihoods. It was really hard.Sarah Wells: This has been a devastating year-plus for us because of the Trump tariffs. We were hit really hard with our first container that came in last year from China with an unexpected IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) tariff. It resulted in layoffs and downsizing our product catalog. We sold out of our best-selling inventory, and I ended up trying to move all of my manufacturing to Cambodia to try to get around some of that and get away from this reliance on China, and it was immediately hit with 49 percent IEEPA tariffs. No matter what I do, trying to do the right thing as an American small business employing Americans, it seems like the tariffs just keep chasing me down. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newdemocratcoalition.substack.com