COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KRHD) — A federal trade court put a hold on most of President Donald Trump's tariffs, but the Trump administration is appealing. The latest tariff development has local small businesses still operating with uncertainty.
- Differing court rulings are creating uncertainty surrounding President Trump's planned tariffs. While the courts debate their legality, the impact of these is creating concern among local small business owners.
- Trouper Krueger, General Manager of Aggie-owned business Kaspar Outdoors, tells 15 ABC there are all sorts of outside factors that shape the landscape businesses operate in, and he believes uncertainty is causing problems. While he doesn't expect a major impact right now, his business is hoping for stability and consistency down the road.
- In a conversation with Raymond Robertson, Director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy at Texas A&M University, he shared with 15 ABC that this will probably continue for some time with the Trump administration looking for another way to get tariffs done, adding that uncertainty will not be resolved anytime soon.
- The tariff situation is in a gray area, with Robertson telling 15 ABC it's not clear right now from the court rulings whether the court rulings stop them or the Trump administration's appeal keeps them active. He says it’s something we're going to have to continue to watch, and that he was not 100% sure on which way they were going to go for all the tariffs.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Looking down the barrel at more of the same.
“The main thing right now for us from a tariff standpoint is really being aware and monitoring closely the changes and how that might impact our vendors," Trouper Krueger, General Manager of Aggie-owned business Kaspar Outdoors, said.
Since President Trump's inauguration, tariffs have been in the spotlight and are being watched by all.
“The courts reviewed those and said those don't really apply in this situation because we really don't have national security issues on everything and or we don't have an emergency right now that warrants the tariffs," Raymond Robertson, Director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy at Texas A&M University, said.
Robertson tells 15 ABC the tariffs are creating an unclear picture.
“This continued uncertainty really reduces investment a lot, and that reduction in investment costs jobs, it costs obviously delays, it drives up prices because people aren't sure whether or not they can increase inventories or increase investment or just plan for the future.”
For Kaspar Outdoors, sourcing on U.S. soil has mostly kept them on target.
“You have a lot of guys that deal with Canada or deal with Spain that, again, lead times or stock outs on particular components that have kind of caught some of our competitors which have been a huge advantage to us, you know, being Texas made here," Derrick Ratliff, Founder and Vice President of Marketing at Kaspar Outdoors, said.
Krueger and Ratliff tell 15 ABC the tariffs are making more U.S. products available to them.
However, that might not be the case for every small business.
“Large businesses have a chance to diversify and actually have a lot more business relationships than small businesses would," said Robertson. And so it's very likely that these small businesses are going to get hit especially hard.”
For now, the latest tariff talks have everyone watching and waiting.
15 ABC asked Krueger and Ratliff, since we're kind of in a gray area right now, what the tariff situation might look like moving forward.
“Long term it will be very interesting to see how it plays out in terms of what, what it creates in the space, but for us right now I don't think it’s — we don't expect to have a major impact in the short term," said Krueger.