After fighting in the Vietnam War, Richard May returned to America and enrolled in business school, where an economics class made a big impression on him.
He learned about the British economist David Ricardo’s 19th-century theory of comparative advantage, the idea that a nation should specialize in what it does best and trade with others for everything else. He started his own business in 1990, designing medical treatment beds and garage doors in the United States. Applying Ricardo’s ideas, Mr. May used manufacturers in Asia to turn his blueprints into products.
This model worked well for Mr. May’s company, MFG Direct USA, for the better part of 35 years. But this year, amid President Trump’s barrage of tariffs, he feared that his company might not survive another 60 days. To bring his garage doors into America from China, he now had to pay an 83 percent tax to the U.S. government, a compilation of four different existing and new tariffs.
Mr. May, 78, said he went into “survival mode.” He laid off staff and cut expenses drastically. His team worked 12 hours a day trying to find new customers. He made it through the shock, but the business is facing big challenges.
“We’re hanging on by a thread,” he said. “We’ve been doing everything possible. We’re working harder just to stay in business.”
Just over six months into Mr. Trump’s campaign to rebalance global trade, some American small businesses are already on the brink. Others have chosen to throw in the towel. Last week, the United States and China agreed to extend, by another 90 days, a pause on tariffs that would have soared to a catastrophic 145 percent, averting a worst-case scenario — a complete halt of trade between the world’s two largest economies.
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