• President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs come into effect today, including a 104 percent tariff on Chinese products.
• Small businesses that rely on imports are terrified of what these tariffs could mean for their sales.
• Owner of Feastables chocolate Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, has said it would be cheaper to move production to a country were tariffs aren’t being imposed.

Today, President Donald Trump’s ridiculous tariffs come into effect, and it’s not just the stock market that is running scared.

To catch you up briefly, last week Wednesday, President Trump stood up with a massive chart to showcase how much the US would charge companies to sell their products in the US. These tariffs differ depending on how much trade there is between the US and the tariffed company, but on average, a 29 percent tariff is being applied. You can find a full list of the tariffs announced at the bottom of this story.

Last week’s announcement sent US stock markets into freefall, and while there has been a slight gain to offset some of the losses, the losses are rather severe and only likely to get worse once the tariffs are in effect.

The goal here, according to Trump, is to make importing less attractive than establishing manufacturing facilities in the US. However, the President seems blissfully ignorant to the fact that setting up manufacturing and supply chains is a long process, and there are some things the US simply can’t produce in-house, like coffee or cocoa beans.

At least one person who is aware of this is celebrity YouTuber and philanthropist Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson. The content creator has built himself an empire beyond the YouTube URL that includes the manufacture of chocolate bars through Feastables. We’re not fans of the chocolate, but it seems others are as it generated $251 million in sales and $20 million in profit in 2024 per Bloomberg via Fast Company.

However, with tariffs looming, Donaldson may simply move his chocolate production out of the US rather than contend with tariffs.

“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,” the creator posted to X.

In a follow-up post, Donaldson highlighted that Feastables already spent a lot of money on cocoa as it tries to support fair trade certified suppliers. “A random price hike was pretty brutal ngl,” MrBeast said.

As he points out, while a company generating a quarter of a billion Dollars in sales will be able to work around these tariffs, many smaller businesses simply won’t be able to.

Drop shipping grifters are done for, but that’s not good

Perhaps the largest tariff on a nation is directed at China where sales to America will attract a 104 percent tariffs. That’s not a typo, products from China will now be twice as expensive as they were last week if the huge tariff stands.

Again, Trump says that this is being done because China sells a lot of products to the US, even if it looks like its made in the US. It’s common practice for US companies to manufacture products, especially clothing, in the People’s Republic of China and have it shipped into the US than it is to buy those products Stateside.

This has long been an oddity in the US economy and, indeed, other nations, but that’s not an accident. The country has spent decades shoring up its infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities. This means Chinese businesses can make and produce just about anything, and combined with cheaper labour compared to the US, this means global players are more likely to get their products directly from the US.

Beyond that, websites like Temu, Shein and Alibaba have captured the world by offering products far cheaper than others. Hell, Chinese products often flood marketplaces beyond those mentioned above, thanks to drop shippers and folks looking to make a quick buck on Amazon et al.

But small businesses in the US rely on China’s huge manufacturing prowess to produce products that are attractive to American buyers. As the small business owner explains in the TikTok video below, buying something as small as bags for biscuits from the US isn’t possible because, well, they’re bad, and the result is an inferior product.

And it’s not just small businesses and YouTubers who think the tariffs are a net bad. Trump’s man with a red right hand, Elon Musk, made repeated attempts to try to get Trump to reverse the forthcoming tariffs. It seems the man many refer to as the shadow President doesn’t have the hold on the President he thinks he does as those pleas fell on deaf ears. This opinion has led to Musk feuding with White House advisor Peter Navarro, according to The Guardian.

With the tariffs coming into effect today, we’re curious to see how imports to the US are affected. We suspect that smaller businesses will feel the full weight of the blow while larger firms will be able to suck it up in the short term. However, consumers will definitely see the prices of most things imported to the US increase, which may make those products less attractive. The companies sending products to the US will surely be sitting pretty as they stand to make more money from US businesses for little to no extra investment on their end.

While Trump supporters crow that the President is playing chess while everybody plays checkers, that’s not great. If everybody is playing checkers and you arrive with chess pieces, you’re not going to be able to play the game, and you’ll have to sit by and watch on as the game moves on without you.