A stark new economic analysis reveals the Trump administration’s trade policies are extracting a heavy toll from Main Street, with small-business importers paying approximately $25,000 more per month in tariff costs since April 2025. The report, published Dec. 17 by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-wing think tank, details how a “chaotic approach” to trade and the elimination of key import exceptions have created a financial crisis for entrepreneurs during the critical holiday season.
According to the analysis by Michael Negron and Mimla Wardak, the administration’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement triggered a sharp increase in duties collected from American businesses. From April through September 2025, CAP estimated, the roughly 236,000 small-business importers in the U.S. paid an average of more than $151,000 in additional tariffs compared to the same period in 2024. (CAP cited the centrist Chamber of Commerce’s research on the small-business importer sector of the economy.)
“The Trump administration’s broad, costly, and frequently shifting policies threaten to undermine one of the strongest engines of the American economy,” Negron said in a statement to Fortune. “A season of opportunity for small businesses has turned into one of uncertainty.”
