This is John Batchel, a conversation with my colleague, Gene Marks, of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Guardian newspaper Small Business columnist about tariffs proposed by the Trump administration soon enough.

What do tariffs do for small businesses?

Gene uses the example of kitchen cabinet makers.

He recently visited with an association of kitchen cabinet makers.

He recently visited with an association of kitchen cabinet makers.

And the answer is surprising.

Tariffs in 2025.

More of this tonight.

Well, in our last segment, I did talk to you about those kitchen cabinet manufacturers.

You know, a lot of them were small and mid-sized businesses, and they're excited to have tariffs so that they can compete with low-cost imports that are coming in. So in some cases, businesses

themselves will have that advantage because they can be put on a more level playing

film. Remember that turns into retaining jobs. I mean, again, say you're a cabinet manufacturer

and you can't compete against China and what do you do? You have to cut back and, you know,

people can lose employment. So that's the big political reason behind why, you know, Trump is so much behind

tariffs. Tariffs itself, you know, also they protect industries. They help small businesses maybe

that are in e-commerce, where they buy goods from overseas and resell them. But those goods

themselves, you know, might come at a different price.

But the biggest issue with tariffs that people are very much concerned about is inflation.

If, you know, it's a cost.

So if companies are going to continue to import goods for their materials and then resell them,

and those come at a 60% higher cost because

that's the tariff rate that Trump is proposing on China. Well, the company's going to have

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