The tariffs will force area companies to adapt and could increase the cost of goods local consumers buy.
Joshua Smith, CEO of the Butler County Finance Authority, said the implementation of the tariffs has the potential to impact those in the development and construction sectors.
“In discussions with several developers, many have acknowledged proactively pricing in cost escalations due to both the immediate impact of tariffs and the continued persistence of inflation, which remain notably sticky,” Smith said.
Tariffs are essentially an import tax paid for by American companies (importers) and diverted to the U.S. Treasury. The costs are typically passed on to customers in the form of higher prices. On the other hand, tariffs can hurt foreign countries by making their products pricier and harder to sell abroad.
The Trump administrations has put a 20% tariff on Chinese imports (on top of any pre-existing tariffs), which China responded to by implementing additional tariffs of up to 15% on certain U.S. agricultural products.
Some large-scale farms in the U.S. have voiced concerns on the export tariffs, but Gail Lierer, a farmer and president of Butler County’s Farm Bureau, said that “it’ll all work out.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
“The prices just fluctuate so much that you don’t really know from one day to the next if we’re going to be up or down on the market,” Lierer said. “We could definitely use an up market, though.”
Lierer, whose farm is in Morgan Twp., is unsure on whether these tariffs will lead to this “up market” or to bigger issues.
“It’s really hard to judge,” she said. “But overall, these countries have been taking advantage of us, so I don’t think [the tariffs] are a bad deal, but I hate to see it when some of these farmers, the younger farmers, are just struggling.”
A recent poll from AgWeb showed that more than half of farmers (54%) say they don’t support Trump’s use of tariffs “as a negotiation strategy.” Out of the nearly 3,000 farmers who responded, 41% responded that they do support Trump’s tariffs.
On a smaller scale, Lierer, who took over her family farm with her husband about 48 years ago, doesn’t think that current tariff issues are vastly different from anything she’s seen over her decades of farming.
“I think people get a little nervous about these markets...it’ll all work out,” she said. “It just takes time.”
International superstore Jungle Jim’s, with locations in Fairfield and Eastgate, has kept a close eye on tariffs for years.
“I know tariffs is a huge subject right now, but believe it or not, it’s always been a part of our day-to-day here at Jungle Jim’s,” Zack Cobb, creative director for the supermarket, told WCPO. “It’s just doing our best to keep that line of communication open, not only with our suppliers, but also with our customers.”
Jungle Jim’s’ two locations carry more than 200,000 products representing about 75 different countries, Cobb said.
“It means a lot of employees, a lot of products, a lot of different vendors,” Cobb said.
Smith said the “broader implications” of tariffs may include upward pressure on overall construction costs, potential delays in project delivery and second-order economic effects that could dampen investment activity and local economic expansion.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Smith said there are sectors that could benefit from the tariffs. Cleveland-Cliffs, a leading domestic steel producer with a production facility in Middletown, has expressed support for the tariffs, viewing them as a “mechanism to improve competitiveness by mitigating the influence of lower-cost foreign steel,” according to Smith.
“From their perspective, the tariffs could serve as a catalyst for rebalancing global trade dynamics and strengthening U.S.-based manufacturing,” Smith said.
After Trump’s February announcement of steel and aluminum tariffs, stock prices surged nearly 18% for Cleveland-Cliffs.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, a former auto dealer owner, said during a visit to a Cleveland Cliffs plant in Cleveland that tariffs will serve as a way to bring jobs back to Ohio.
“We’re going to see a lot of investment come into the U.S. pretty quickly,” Moreno said. “We’re going to make sure we have energy policies, that we have regulatory policies, tax policies and workforce policies that make that landing very easy. We’ve got to reindustrialize this country. We’ve got to rebuild our industrial base.”
Moreno has told other media outlets he is introducing legislation that would soften the blow of tariffs by making interest on auto loans for U.S.-made cars tax deductible.
The Dayton region has nearly 2,500 manufacturing companies with more than 130,000 employees, according to the Dayton Region Manufacturers Association.
There are concerns about how high tariffs would affect the supply chain for area manufacturers, Stephanie Keinath, director of Public Policy & Economic Development for the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Dayton Daily News earlier this year.
“The extent to which our companies in Dayton play on the international field, it really has the long-term potential to impact their viability,” Keinath said. “Long story short: We understand that there are probably some tariffs that are necessary to make it easier for American companies to do what they do, and there are some tariffs, or some level of tariffs, that will ultimately make it cost prohibitive for American companies to succeed.”
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