Rae

We are a small business manufacturer and we make specialty wireless products catering to niche clients throughout the world. We have sold to most countries including a few times to even countries like Mauritania. We are also one the best/leading manufacturer in our category of business/trade. I see a lot of folks posting regarding tariffs and how the sky is falling on our heads and a global recession etc. Here is the reality for a small business manufacturer.... Our clientele used to be almost 60-40 before the pandemic. Meaning 60% sales within USA and 40% outside of the USA including Canada, Japan, GCC, Australia etc. EU was always less then 5%, barring sales from Scandinavia and good sales in the UK. One of the key reasons, we were never able to penetrate the EU market even with a superior product was because of the tariff & VAT charged by EU. Then Euro almost became par with the US Dollar and this also added to the equation, meaning they had to spend more money to buy an American made product. Our raw materials, hardware etc are sourced within the USA, parts are jobbed out to local CNC Machinists and the final product is 100% Made in the USA. After the pandemic, the shipping costs for exporters rose up to very high levels (almost double) and at the same time, if a US dealer is importing a similar product from a competitor in EU, the shipping costs for import are half the price. So, not only are we impacted exporting due to VAT and high shipping costs, our domestic market is also constantly being challenged because of imports "Zero" VAT or Customs Duty into the USA and cheap import shipping offered by Fedex, UPS, DHL etc. A simple 20% tariff on EU products will make a level playing field against the competition and its only a start. Our business is still very strong within the USA due our product quality and performance. However we are unable to raise prices due to overseas products with pricing helped by their currency, 0% duty and half the shipping cost importing into the USA. Why is the shipping costs so high into the EU? or to the rest of the world? This we are told is because of higher landing fees charged by other countries, other green taxes etc and price of aircaft fuel imposed on the shipping carriers. So, any small business manufacturer in the USA doing well and surviving is purely because of its tenacity and product manufacturing quality and design among other things. There is no level playing field within the country or outside the country. For once we are happy an attempt is made towards making it a level playing field. Time will tell but we THANK President Trump and his team for boldly attempting to right the wrong.