By Spencer Soper and Lily Meier
Bernie Thompson has spent nearly a decade trying to move production of the electronics he sells out of China and into Vietnam, Thailand and other countries he thought would be spared in a global trade war.
So the founder and chief technology officer at Plugable Technologies said he watched in disbelief last week when President Donald Trump revealed tariffs that apply to imports from more than 180 countries and territories including 46% for Vietnam and 36% for Thailand.
The impact was immediate: Thompson checked on the laptop docking stations, USB adapters and other products currently stuck on ships en route to the US and realized they will now incur several hundred thousand dollars in tariffs he hadn’t factored in.
“To have eight years of work diverting supply chain away from China unwound in one surprise move has been brutal,” said Thompson, whose Redmond, Washington-based business sells products on Amazon.com and other online marketplaces.
Trump’s tariffs continue to roil global markets, wiping out trillions in market value. Not included in those measurements, though, are millions of small businesses that sell through online marketplaces on Amazon, Walmart Inc. and Facebook and don’t have the market power or profit margins to absorb the tariff shocks.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
