Rush orders, cut costs, crossed fingers: How small businesses are preparing for tariffs

President-elect Donald Trump is wasting little time affirming that tariffs will be a Day One priority. With his inauguration less than two months away, small businesses are already making moves to avoid expected cost increases — or weighing whether to take a financial hit or pass it on to customers.

On Monday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he plans to implement 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada, plus an additional 10% tariff on goods from China.

He didn’t reiterate his calls on the stump for blanket tariffs on imports from practically everywhere, and some experts predict his proposed trade barriers would face legal challenges. But despite the uncertainty, small businesses that had eyed the plans nervously during the campaign say the clock is ticking to insulate themselves as best they can.

Beatrice Barba runs Tabor Place, a San Francisco Bay Area maker of nontoxic cups and lunch boxes for children. She’d intended to spend 2025 innovating new styles of her signature sippy cups, but now she’s dropping those plans and stockpiling as much of her basic inventory as she can.

Her entire product line is made in China, because none of the 80 domestic manufacturers she contacted when she launched the business around six years ago could execute her borosilicate glass designs.

Barba was a little worried about Trump’s tariff proposals, but she didn’t expect him to win, and she doubted his commitment to imposing them if he did. Over the next couple of months, she’s hoping her Chinese suppliers can churn out a single $200,000 order for the whole year — and get it through U.S. ports — before Trump takes office.

“That at least buys me a little bit of time to weather the storm,” she said. “There’s a sense of urgency, and I’m very nervous.”