“Nail in the Coffin for Small Businesses”

Mr. Beast has become one of the first major entertainment figures to speak out about President Trump’s tariff spikes.

The popular YouTuber and creator and host of the Amazon hit Beast Games criticized the president’s “Liberation Day” policies, which experts have said will raise inflation, halt business growth, slow hiring and very likely lead to a recession. The tariffs have also wiped out trillions from the stock market, impacting retirement accounts.

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Referencing his Feastables chocolate bar business, Mr. Beast told followers on X, “Ironically because of all the new tariffs it is now way cheaper to make our chocolate bars we sell globally NOT in America because other countries don’t have a 20%+ tariff on our cogs. [By the way,] we pay our farmers a living income, use fair trade certified beans, etc. So I was already spending a lot on cocoa. A random price hike was pretty brutal [not gonna lie]. We’ll figure it out. I feel for small businesses though. Could really be a nail in the coffin for them.”‘

Indeed, small business — which account for almost half of all private-sector employment in the U.S., according to CBS News — are considered highly vulnerable to tariff increases because they don’t have the deep cash reserves or flexibility to withstand the sudden changes.

Mr. Beast, a.k.a. Jimmy Donaldson, has a range of businesses apart from his YouTube empire, which include MrBeast Burger delivery restaurant chain, a packaged food brand called Lunchly, a social media analytics platform called Viewstats and his active philanthropy LLC.

Many economists, business leaders and major figures have likewise criticized the tariffs, among them Trump supporters such as Dave Portnoy, billionaire Elon Musk (who has called Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro a “moron”) and hedge fund titan Bill Ackerman (who warned, “We are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business and as a market to invest capital”).

Hollywood, in general, hasn’t yet suffered any direct retaliation from countries hit by the tariffs. But with a crushing 104 percent tariff against China set to go into effect at midnight, the world’s second-largest film market might be about to restrict Hollywood films.

As The Hollywood Reporter noted earlier Tuesday, two widely followed Chinese public figures — one an editor for a state media outlet, the other the son of a former party chief — released identical outlines on Tuesday of countermeasures Chinese authorities are said to be considering in response to Trump’s tariffs that include “reducing or banning the import of U.S. films” (as well as increasing tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods and U.S. services, among other countermeasures).

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