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Small Sample Reveals Businesses Worry Over Rollercoaster Tariff Threat; Some Report Supply Chain Issues, Unease About Business Flow

By Tina Traster

Like nearly every other draconian move the Trump administration has unleashed, the president’s seemingly random rollercoaster tariff tantrums may have to be decided in the courts.

In the meantime, since Trump announced “Liberation Day” in April, businesses small and large have been reeling from uncertainty as they ride the on-again, off-again, how big, how small seesaw that continues to dizzy the nation and the world.

Recognizing this existential threat to the economy, a group of Nyack High School seniors has come up with a survey to poll local businesses for a “Seal of Civic Readiness” history class project. In late May, Visit Nyack, a nonprofit with a large mailing list, sent the survey by email to its constituents.

“We are writing to ask that you fill out this survey on the Effects of Tariffs on Small Business Owners,” the email said. “The plan is to use this Google form to collect information on how small businesses feel about tariffs and their potential effects.”

Ethan Lawrence is getting ready to graduate and pursue a degree in chemical engineering at University of Delaware this fall. When it came time to choose a project for history class, Lawrence, along with Casey Dobbelaer and Dylan Warzecha, chose to focus on a local hands-on project with national implications.

“The tariffs are becoming a big issue,” said Lawrence. “Everyone is talking about them, but we wanted to see whether it was media hype or a real issue. And if so, how is it affecting people?” His team thought it was a good time to investigate the issue from a local perspective.

The first survey question asks participants to rank by a one-to-five rating how important the following aspects are to their business: shopping local, social media promotion, buying gift cards, positive reviews, recommending businesses to friends. Next, the survey asks whether a business is “growing, stagnant, or regressing.”

Questions four through eight directly probe the tariff issue: starting with whether businesses are importing and their level of concern about supply chain disruption to whether they’ve already felt the impact. The final question asks businesses to rate their level of concern based on a one-to-ten scale.

It is too soon to draw conclusive results, but Lawrence said businesses do seem to be very worried with about a dozen responses reporting “eight-to-ten” scores on their level of concern.

“It’s a very small sample, but every business has indicated that they are concerned,” he said.

Lawrence estimates there are about 300 small businesses in the Nyack, with roughly 70 food and beverage establishments and 50 retailers. An interesting note is that none of the responses the team has received to date have come from the food and beverage sector.

Based on the small sample of returns, businesses are reporting that they continue to be in growth mode but some are starting to stagnate. Survey responders said they are feeling the uncertainty, reporting that “their clients are on edge and not spending.”

“No one is saying business has slowed down, but some have reported supply chain disruptions,” said Lawrence. “They already seen the disruptions, with orders being cancelled.”

Overall, the recurring theme is uncertainty and uneasiness, which impacts planning, investment, and hiring.

Although Lawrence is set to graduate, he said he’ll continue working on the survey project through the summer. Both his parents have worked as engineers in the corporate sector, but the high school senior has been raised with an appreciation of small-town vitality.

“When you’re in a community like Nyack, you know small businesses,” said Lawrence. “You know the owners who give back, who donate prizes and free-gift cards when you have an event. You know the pizza shops. I go to the village almost every day because it’s walking distance from the high school. I go to the gym at the Y. I spend money there every day.”

Lawrence hopes Rockland County at large will follow the lead on this project and do a county-wide survey on how tariffs – or at least the threat of them – are impacting business.

On a national level, two educational toy companies this week asked the Supreme Court to swiftly take up their challenge to tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. Learning Resources and hand2mind, filed a joint appeal arguing that Trump had no power to impose the tariffs on goods from China under a law called the International Economic Powers Act. They asked the court to leapfrog over a federal appeals court, which has yet to rule on the case, and agree to take the dispute up this month so it can schedule oral arguments this fall, possibly as early as September.

A federal judge in Washington had ruled the tariffs were unlawful but that ruling is on hold.

“Even as these punishing tariffs cause American businesses and consumers to bleed billions of dollars each month, there will be no relief any time soon,” the toy companies’ lawyers said in court papers.

The issue is one of national consequence that the Supreme Court has to decide, they added, noting that it concerns whether the president can “unilaterally reshape the national economy and global trade policy.”

In another case, the Court of International Trade ruled against the administration over the president’s tariff authority. That decision is also blocked for now, meaning all the tariffs remain in effect while litigation continues.