Trump’s trade war isn’t failing. It’s working, just not for the people who voted for it.
When Trump eliminated the de minimis exemption, four million packages daily lost duty-free status. That’s 92% of all cargo facing tariffs, and small businesses are drowning.
Eight major tariff adjustments in the past 12 months have created a policy whiplash that large corporations can navigate but small businesses cannot. Yet these policies assume corporate-level resources that small businesses simply don’t have, costing them $856,000 annually, while only 37% have access to business credit to weather these changes.
The policy whiplash costs
Small businesses represent 97% of all U.S. importers. Trump’s China tariff pause, extended twice beyond its original 90-day timeline, has left virtually all of them trapped in regulatory uncertainty where rules change faster than they can adapt.
