Fear Consumes Small Firms Hit by Trump Tariffs: Supply Lines

President Donald Trump’s zigzagging trade policies along with high interest rates are restraining employment and hurting sales at many of the US’s 36 million small businesses.

There’s less data for this universe of companies than there is for publicly listed firms, but ask around and you’ll hear plenty of distress, Bloomberg Businessweek reports this week. Small-business bankruptcies are ticking up, while loan delinquencies are at multiyear highs.

“We’re heading into our most critical season not with optimism but with fear,” says Gabe Hagen, the owner of Brick Road Community, a coffee roaster in Tempe, Arizona, who’s facing rising import costs and, ...