“I’m concerned as to whether we’ll be able to survive this,” said Gladys Harrison, owner of Big Mama’s Kitchen & Catering in Omaha, Nebraska.
President Donald Trump‘s Wednesday announcement of soaring reciprocal tariffs on U.S. imports has resulted in a slump in global markets and serious concerns among investors and consumers alike. The concerns are particularly felt by Black small businesses.
“I’m concerned as to whether we’ll be able to survive this,” said Gladys Harrison, owner of Big Mama’s Kitchen & Catering in Omaha, Nebraska.
Harrison told theGrio that despite opening the soul food eatery’s doors during the 2007 financial crisis and enduring the challenges of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, “Food prices were very reasonable.” She explained, “We could provide people with food at a price that still made it affordable for the people in our community.”
Big Mama’s is located in a predominantly Black and brown neighborhood in North Omaha, where many residents are living below the poverty line, Harrison shared. She said Trump’s new tariffs are causing the business to “examine how can we still make food affordable for people in our community and still be able to pay our bills?”
A major core of the restaurant’s business is its seasonings, which are used in the menu’s recipes and separately sold online. Harrison says her suppliers for the seasonings “aren’t made here in America.”
“If the price of those seasonings goes up, we’re definitely not going to be able to expand the way that we wanted to,” said Harrison, who shared that selling their seasonings around the world was a dream of her late mother, who founded the restaurant at 65.
Harrison said restaurant orders have “gone up considerably” in recent months. She also pointed out that consumers “aren’t spending as much money as they normally would.” She added, “because they might have had a federal job and lost it or are in fear of losing a job.”
Big Mama’s has a hiring freeze in anticipation of higher prices and the economic downturn. Harrison said she may also have to cut employee hours and is already “cross-training” employees to be able to do “two jobs” so that they can continue receiving their paychecks.
“My employees…this is how they pay their bills. This is how they buy their kids clothes and put food on their table, and it just blows my mind that our government would make such drastic changes that are going to have cataclysmic effects on people,” said Harrison.
Shaundell Newsome, owner of Sumnu Marketing in Las Vegas, Nevada, is similarly concerned about the impacts of Trump’s tariffs. His business is in the middle of construction for a new office.
“Whenever you increase tariffs on steel, on basic supplies that come from overseas–that increases overall costs. And they have to pass that on to us,” Newsome told theGrio. “It’s like a trickle-down.”
Newsome’s business, which has existed for 19 years, also provides additional earnings to internship programs and youth entrepreneur programs. Those programs could be in jeopardy if his business takes a major financial hit.
Though President Trump and his administration have argued that while price increases may be a short-term result of his global trade war, in the end, American businesses and consumers will prevail because more companies will do business in the United States. The president believes his economic policies will result in America’s “golden age.”
Newsome said many small businesses, particularly Black-owned, “don’t have time to sit back and wait for things to materialize.” He told theGrio, “We don’t have shareholders who are investing in our business and our companies. We don’t have anybody to go to, to throw $100 million, even a million dollars, into our businesses.” Newsome added, “Everything comes out of our pocket. Most things come from our own personal investment.”
Newsome explained that for many Black small businesses, their life savings and retirement are leveraged to operate their businesses. He told theGrio, “We don’t get access to these large banks and these large loans and access to capital.” The irony, he said, is that, unlike large corporations, small businesses “employ almost half of the American workforce.”
According to a March survey conducted by Small Business for America’s Future, 63% of small business owners believe Trump’s economy is on the wrong track.
Democratic strategist Joel Payne told theGrio that Trump’s tariffs, which don’t prioritize workers, are “forcing the economy into a weakened state in an attempt to build it in your own image.” He predicts this will backfire politically for him.
“If the whole theory is that you know you’re doing on the economy, and you continually prove that you don’t know what you’re doing on the economy, that’s a really dangerous, destabilizing thing to do for your political narrative,” said Payne.
Harrison of Big Mama’s Kitchen & Catering estimates that 90% of her restaurant’s purchases come from overseas. She says Trump’s logic on tariffs resulting in an American boom “doesn’t make sense.” She explained, “Even if what he said were true, where are these companies at? They aren’t in existence right now.”
“I cannot see the good that’s going to come out of this for the American citizens,” said Harrison.
Despite the very real concerns Black small businesses have about their future amid Trump’s massive tariff program, they are not hopeless. Newsome said Black business owners must “go back to our superpower.”
“The great thing about Black people is we’ve been here before,” he said. Referring to the Trump administration, Newsome said, “These folks have term limits. They too shall pass.”
“So [Black businesses] just have to weather the storm. Keep fighting. Use the gifts that you have,” he told theGrio. “We know family members that were in poverty…[and] went through the Jim Crow South. If they can endure all of those things, this is not as tough as it looks.”
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