CEO spends 1.83 million Amex points to pay surprise tariff bill

“It is like a needle that hinders a crack in the dam,” said Kelly, who runs Kelly Electronics, a guitar manufacturer with 35 employees in Oklahoma City.

Keley’s Scramble is part of a broader account of the smaller business in America, which is equipped with volatile commercial policies. Another blow can land on July 9, and the president of the deadline Donald Trump imposed on other countries to secure commercial deals with the United States to avoid high definitions.

The risks are especially high for manufacturers with less than 100 employees, which represent 93 % of about 240,000 American industrial companies. Unlike global blocs, these companies often lack cash reserves, muscle pressure or supply chain elasticity to absorb high sharp tariffs or axial production.

Among those who feel pressure, there is a narrow range of guitar guitar manufacturers such as Kelly, who run boutique companies that build Stomb boxes that make up the sound of music. The specialized industry provides a window on economic losses to escalate the tariff for smaller companies.

Painful development

To survive, pedals builders do something unusual in a competitive work: resorting to each other for help.

The coalition, Jolly Robbins, 46, began the CEO of the olives in Akron, Ohio. To avoid the demobilization of workers between 35 workers, Robins benefited from the company’s credit line. But she is afraid that the strategy will not adhere to and consider transferring some production abroad – a painful development, given that the definitions were aimed at bringing jobs to the home.

Trump, who is speaking last week at the NATO summit in The Hague, said the fees motivate manufacturers to reproduce. He said: “The factories are built because they do not want to pay the definitions.” Some large companies promised to invest in local manufacturing. Apple Inc. plans. Only to spend more than $ 500 billion in the United States during the next four years.

But small manufacturers do not tend to get deep pockets or flexibility to rebuild supply chains. Many, such as Zezlan, depend on the imported ingredients. The company’s sources of circles, resistors and transistors from China for duations used by teams, including black keys and directing them with sounds.

Read more: Trump says he does not expect to extend the final date on July 9

In early May, with the high customs tariff prices, nearly 50 people joined the second meeting of the Al -Dora builders’ support group, doubling the percentage of its opening invitation. The rules were clear: there is no talk about pricing or anything that could be considered complicity. One of the participants joked that the group looked like a miniature Obesh.

“OPEC jokes are fine,” said Robbins.

The guest spokesman on that day was Sean Vitiplas, Main Street Alliance, a group of small business owners. He described how Trump’s first commercial team included some moderate voices. He said that today’s administration is a “greater type of economic nationality.”

Money

Soon, the personal conversation has turned.

Jon Cusack, 55, runs a pedal manufacturer in the Netherlands, Michigan, which builds delay and hesitation and other StOS boxes for his commercial brands and other companies. He said he spent $ 200,000 on the stock before entering the customs duties, and drained his savings.

“I have reached the point where my long money has disappeared, and I still face many of the next customs tariff bills,” said Kusak, whose revenues of $ 30 million last year said. “Can we survive for three months, six months, as you know, in general? My next step is the mortgage of the house, and I don’t want to do that.”

Josh Scott, who is involved in Takbar, who owns the JHS pedals based in Kansas City, said it is unusual for competitors to share their conflicts with each other, but members of the support group deal with the same problem and they are part of a coherent society. It works to employ 42 workers and has about $ 10 million in revenue last year.

Use Scott, 43, who also runs YouTube is a popular YouTube channel for guitar players, his platform to explain how the customs tariff works. It has recently written Badik Post reminding consumers that “American companies pay the tariff” – a cost that is ultimately transferred to customers.

In mid -May, Robbins traveled to Washington to testify before the American Senate for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and the legislators told that “without immediate rest of the definitions and commercial war that followed, American manufacturing companies like Lee will not survive in the summer.” Zellshan was founded with her husband, musician Jimmy Stellman, in 2004.

The committee told that before the customs tariff for this year, it bought an empty printed circuit boards from China for $ 1.40 each, compared to $ 20.70 to $ 31.19 for local alternatives.

She said: “This is not an applicable option and our prices will lead much higher than the market will bear.” “This is just one of the components we use.”

Read more: Trump’s tariff that aims to revive manufacturing

During the meeting of the next Dawasa Group of Takbeer, Evanna Manly, President of Manly Laboratories Inc. participated. Her special tactics to reduce costs. Chino, California, manufactures princesses, equations, microphones and other equipment to record studios.

“We have set all of our employees to 30 hours a week, and this is the basis that they can stay and still keep their health care,” said Manley, 56.

Kelly shared his own story on the topic of the group’s message, explaining how he used AmeX credit card points to pay customs tariff bills in May and June reached 10,987.48 dollars on Golden Shine Electronics (WENG YUAN) in China and other imported ingredients that are shipped via DHL.

Kelly, 55, wrote the group in mid -June: “I wanted to share the only” play “I have in combating tariffs.

Read more: Nirvana guitar maker swings with the chaos of the Trump tariff

At the follow -up meeting next week, frustration was thwarted. For approximately two hours, the participants have exchanged ideas on how to raise awareness about the impact of definitions on small American manufacturers.

“They are only convinced that we can start building transistors, resistances, research and capacitors,” said Kusak. “I am supposed to be able to become an expert in each of these fields and manufacture all my own products? They do not understand what is necessary to do all of this.”

Robbins agreed that the conception gap made it difficult to get traction with legislators and the public.

She said, “I don’t think any of us is ready to go down without a fight.” “I think we all consider this, as you know, a threat to our survival.”