Kimberly Drennan, CEO and co-founder of Colorado company Hivetech Solutions, checked out her bees in Boulder. Kimberly Drennan Closed subtitles
Many new tariffs have already taken effect, and more will be available online.
Auto parts that were kicked out this month were taxed. Steel and aluminum responsibilities; new taxes on small value packages; most imports are 10%; a flat 145% customs fee for anything from China; and, given that other tariffs in dozens of countries are not suspended until at least July.
Exporters in other countries are eating some of these costs, but Americans have taken over a lot.
NPR requires listeners and readers to send us copies of receipts that cost more. We came back from dozens of people. Here is what we get:
Sandy Alonso does need a wheelchair replacement.
"It's been ten years," Alonso said. "The debris are starting to break."
Alonso likes the model she already has: a chair is light enough to fit into the car by herself. It is made in China and she didn't know of any other North American distributors that own it. So she found a freight forwarder in Canada to transport her wheelchair to Tampa, Florida, where she lives.
She said when Alonso issued an order in early March, she found that she had to pay a 20% tariff on her chair, but "certainly feasible," although "bad." But President Trump imposed more tariffs in weeks, Alonso faced a steep 145% tariff when he was wheelchair-passing China to reach Canada and crossing the border into the United States.
By then, it would be too late to send it back. The total cost of her wheelchair is close to $6,000, and the tariffs are nearly $3,500 alone.
"I'm just sitting here, wow, I can't believe I'm just paying a lot of money for this chair," she said with an incredible smile.
Alter Ego Comics, a family-run business in Ohio, shared a receipt (pictured on the left), showing a breakout in tariffs, and to the right is a screenshot of the front and back pricing pages on the Hivetech Solutions website, a Colorado company’s website, a COOLLADO Company in Colorado that provides a large number of containers for Beepryperight’s containers for Beeverse boy beeeplace boxes bogekeepers and For For For For For For For For Formers and Formers. Receipts submitted from Marc Bowker and Kimberly Drennan Closed subtitles
Small businesses also send screenshots of their new price to NPR. Some of them choose to pay attention to customers in advance about why they raise prices after taxes globally and disclose the costs they have gone through.
“We are a small company that has come to our place by investing in people who are in ours,” said Kimberly Drennan, CEO of Hivetech Solutions, Colorado. As a startup, the company already works on slim profit margins.
Drennan shared a screenshot showing how the starting price of one of her company's boxes rose from $17,800 to over $30,000 now shipped from China. She also shared this on her website and on business conferences.
Sharing these prices with customers is an option. The Trump administration criticized Amazon for reporting that a unit of the e-commerce giant is considering listing tariff fees. After that, Amazon said it will not list these fees.
But Drennan said she wanted to be transparent with customers about the startup’s margins and the increase in costs: “They really think, oh, China is going to pay that. It doesn’t matter to us because, it doesn’t matter to us because, you know, China is going to pay this tariff. We’re like, no, no, it’s not tariff. It’s actually taxing on us.”
Some average store shoppers feel the same way. Jeri Cheraskin noticed that she issued a notice at her local grocery store in Ithaca, New York, which said the price of bananas in Costa Rica increased by 10% due to tariffs.
"I always think that being honest with your customers, your consumers are really the best choice, not sneaking around," Cheraskin said. "Personally, I want to know."
President Trump believes tariffs will protect U.S. operations, offset non-competitive cheap foreign-made goods and incentivize manufacturers to open stores in the U.S.
But some business owners say the constant tariff changes have hurt their bottom line. Among them is Marc Bowker, who said the tariffs will affect how much money he can make.
"In a few days, my profit increased from 30% to 16%." said Marc Bowker, owner of Alter Ego Comics, a family-owned company in Ohio.
That's because his Chinese manufacturer made his collector statue absorb the most but not all of the 145% U.S. tariffs.
Bowker still faces higher costs and chooses to absorb about two-thirds of that cost, but he asks long-term clients to pay 6% even after cutting profits.
His business also published comic books printed in Canada, which could face more tariffs from the United States
To find our printing and manufacturing alternatives, it would take months, maybe years to explore relocation to the United States like most small businesses, and he couldn’t afford to wait that long, Bowker said.
"It's almost time to start ordering on holidays, and I don't know what to do this year. I don't want to pay more. I don't want to have too many products on the shelves," he said.
With the impact of tariffs reaching the bottom line for everyone, he wonders if his suppliers in China or Canada are likely to start their business by the end of the year.