When ‘Made in America’ Isn’t an Option, Small Business Owners Facing Tariffs Have Nowhere to Go

National Review ^ | April 24, 2025 | David Zimmermann

[karpov]

When Matt Raboin founded his hard cider company in Wisconsin eight years ago, he wanted to buy American.

But he soon found out that his needs as a small, upstart cidery couldn’t be met by any existing American bottle makers because his orders were too small. Forced to look overseas, Raboin, like many American small business owners and consumers, found the best bang for his buck in China.

Now, his vulnerable business model has been disrupted nearly overnight by President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, which escalated at a dizzying rate, giving business owners little time to adapt.

While it sources apples and almost all its other supplies locally, Brix Cider gets a vintage-style swing-top milk bottle from China for one of its new products. The product is a cream liqueur made with Wisconsin dairy, which explains why Raboin and his wife, Marie, wanted an old-fashioned milk bottle like ones that would have been delivered by the neighborhood milkman in the past.

Raboin explained that Brix Cider had to settle for a Chinese supplier because an American manufacturer he found can make a minimum order of 50,000 bottles — an unnecessary amount for a local business located in Mount Horeb, Wis. And because the Chinese supplier sold a quantity of bottles that Brix Cider could handle, that was the way to go.

But the cidery will only struggle because of the tariffs on China. Raboin expects his company’s costs to rise between $1 and $1.50 per bottle, leaving him no choice but to pass the increased price on to consumers.

While Trump allowed other countries a 90-day reprieve to allow for negotiation within just a few months of taking office, his administration ratcheted up tariffs on China to a whopping 145 percent, prompting Beijing to implement 125 percent tariffs

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: smallbusiness; tariffs

[Strict9]

we used to make all sorts of things in America and God has blessed this country with enough natural resources and ports to choke a horse but we don’t dig or drill so we don’t upset the crazy arabs who want to kill us. We can go back to being self-sufficient.

[Vermont Lt]

If the product is good, the packaging is secondary.

That is the fallacy of this article. They don’t HAVE to use that specific bottle. Spend the “extra” dollars to market the “non china” bottle.

[Vermont Lt]

We placate the Arabs because they price their oil in dollars. If they stopped doing that our currency would have a bad day, week, year.

We’ve been in a huge downward slope since 1973.

[Brian Griffin]

“expects his company’s costs to rise between $1 and $1.50 per bottle”

Perhaps:

We pay 20 cents each for your 1.5 liter wine bottles. These are then sanitized and reused.

[9YearLurker]

Oh, look — another anti-American (and anti-Trump) article in the NR!

And yes, Americans are capable of making and procuring bottles to make cider without having the supplies shipped over from China. (How helpless can we be?)

[9YearLurker]

Oh, and that “cheaper” solution from China could very well come the “developing country” cheap shipping rates we’ve afforded China to the point where many products can be shipped here more cheaply from China than can be mailed within a single state in the US. (With more pollution for the stuff being shipped halfway around the world.)

[hinckley buzzard]

Old-style polemic journalism—go out and beat the bushes till you find a sympathetic figure who illustrates the point you want to make. NR, just like CBSNBCCNN.

[Qwapisking]

surprised that the latest mantra of the liberal activists isn’t “a helpless America is the best America”. weak, helpless and afraid. yep...that’s the new America alright.

[ConservativeMind]

While Trump allowed other countries a 90-day reprieve to allow for negotiation within just a few months of taking office, his administration ratcheted up tariffs on China to a whopping 145 percent, prompting Beijing to implement 125 percent tariffs.

Karpov, you are a Communist China sympathizer. These bottles can be substituted.

When your business model only works because you get your core product from only China, yes, you will necessarily be hurt from your stupid decision because you didn’t also source from another country.

This is true of any business that has a single source that dries up.

[yldstrk]

Yeah, well, therein lies the problem. Chinese use slave labor. Other countries, including the US, do not. So the cost is higher. Raboin did not, in fact, “have to settle” for a Chinese supplier, he chose to settle for a Chinese supplier because he is a cheap bottom line type unprincipled dude. Raboin could have chosen and American bottle supplier, or could have gone into bottling himself for himself, like Elon does (by that, I mean, if Elon needs something, he just manufactures it for himself).

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

If they’re spending the extra dollars to market the non-China bottle, then they’d have to pass on that cost too.

[Theophilus]

Idiot should buy the 50K of bottles and then resell them to others in his quandry thereby drinking China’s profits!

[kvanbrunt2]

I found these at 21.00 per case. not sure what his look like.
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/58849/milk-juice-bottles.html?filter=features:swing-top

[Vermont Lt]

If the “bottle” is the reason why people are buying the product…they have bigger problems.

I am not expert on their product, but I imagine there are less expensive options available. They just don’t fit their “image”. THAT is a marketing problem that would likely be cheaper to fix than their “bottle product.”

[kvanbrunt2]

If you go to the website the bottles look like regulare quart beer bottles nothing fancy. and plentiful

https://brixcider.com/our-ciders-copy

[kvanbrunt2]

I’d rate this at a complete BS.

[silent majority rising]

National Review AND the Wall Street Journal have ALWAYS been anti-Trump. You seem to post from them all.

[Biblebelter]

Some elitist clown at the traitorous National Review named David Zimmermann making a case for “grassroots” globalism lifts all ships.

The uniparty elites sold out the American worker with NAFTA and they are still making the case for the sellout by doing PR for the Red Chinese.

I believe in capitalism and if its survival depends upon Red Chinese slave labor, then the independence declared on July 4, 1776 may not be sustainable.

For me the most impactful story coming out of Red China (before it launched the biological warfare of the scamdemic) was the story of INVENTING suicide nets at an Apple factory in order to keep their human “assets” operating and the “assets” on the books.

Suicide nets the 21st century invention that replaced shackles.

[Mlheureux]

Don’t people realize we are in a war for survival of the US? That involves sucking it up and doing what’s necessary. Being lazy and accepting the status quo is surrender.