When President Donald Trump’s rate policy and the global trade war began to dominate the headlines, early attention focused on the impact on consumers, investors and large companies such as Apple and Ford. Since then, the Spotlight has also been used to Main Street, where small and medium -sized companies – including manufacturers and industrial suppliers – are increasingly feeling tension.
Analyzes of the Institute for delivery management And other sources in the industry confirm that expensive fractions are now spreading over the American supply chains, which threatens the revival of the nation. Small and medium-sized business on half of American industrial production and three-quarters of the jobs Supply Chain Industries– bear the victims of rising costs and constant economic uncertainty. These companies are central to the industrial future of America, but little has been done to help them adapt, let alone boom, like President Trump promised During his campaign.
As an example, in March The Wall Street Journal Featured Tormach, a small machine tool manufacturer in Wisconsin, in a story about rates. In 2024, the company moved production to Mexico after he had learned about the planned rates of the then chairman-selling Trump on Chinese goods, only later to be hit by rates aimed at Mexico. “We can’t just move factories at night,” said CEO Daniel Rogge, who reflects reality for many smaller manufacturers: radical policy changes impose extra costs and uncertainty that they are not equipped to absorb.
Assembly pressure
This dynamic is set throughout the country, even if its effects are mixed (some types of companies can benefit). As rates Upend Global Supply ChainsSmall manufacturers in the US are under increasing pressure – now with fear of recession, business failures and job losses – as their contributions become more critical.
Significant tariff increases and re -negotiated trade agreements are part of the announced strategy of the Trump administration to expand one “Production -economy” In America. But without greater predictability and solutions to help our suppliers to adapt, the new protectionism threatens to derail a production – revival to be derailed – a driven by geopolitics and catalytic national investments.
Since 2021, the federal government has reserved trillions of dollars to upgrade the American infrastructure, to revitalize domestic production and to strengthen the supply chains. These public investments support a modern industrial policy that is projected by JP Morgan Private Bank in 2023 to catalyze $ 1 trillion In private investments in the following decade and encourage global companies to repeat the activities. Small and medium -sized companies form the core of this RE industrialization, such as Requirement For the critical goods and services they provide.
A strategic tool
When Trade policy experts And Economic Analysts have noticed in recent months, rates can be a strategic tool when they are selectively used in addition to other industrial policy – obtaining local companies, or at least buying to become more competitive, by making imported products from foreign competitors more expensive. The targeted rates of former President Joe Biden on Chinese electric vehicles and solar technology, for example, have been designed to be in accordance with public investments and regulation in the clean energy agenda of his administration.
Dekin rates against established trading partners, however, American companies days in established global supplier networks, a central characteristic of integrated trade and distributed production. Manufacturers who depend on cross -border supply chains report Rising input prices And decreasing orders that compile when components come in and leave the American factories. Furthermore, the approach of the Trump administration has fueled widespread confusion, which stimulates record-high small companies uncertainty and falling optimism and investments, according to surveys by the National Federation of Independent Business.
High Stakes
For small and medium -sized manufacturers in the US, the deployment is existential. An important reason is that these companies continue to be confronted with structural barriers that suppress their performance. Research of the McKinsey Global Institute Show that small companies in American production are less productive than their larger colleagues and international counterparts, thanks to challenges in access to financing, trained workers, technologies and new markets. Rates, without adaptive support, are in danger of deepening this gap.
Historically, the US has responded to disturbing trade transitions with adjustment programs that have been designed to support domestic companies and employees. In particular, Trade adjustment for companies (Taaf) was founded in 1962 to help companies adapt to rising import and worldwide competition. But this program and others such as being too limited in reach and largely out of pass with modern economic requirements.
In addition, the switch from the Trump government to reduce and then repair, financing for proven small manufacturer programs, such as the production expansion partner, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, together with financing fractures tested by the court, the inspirations of the industrial investments in order to be rebuilding.
A Marshall plan plan
As the Trump administration occurs a radical protectionist agenda and other countries and trade blocks, the United States needs a modern trading strategy strategy that corresponds to the scale of our re -industrialization and the reality of shifting geopolitics. After the November elections we appealed to one Marshall -Plan for small companies– A strategic framework that is designed to build the basis of small and medium -sized companies and talent that are needed to stimulate the new industrial economy of America.
The plan has three mutually reinforcing pillars, each validated through work examples in various regions of the country: 1) Eutifying small companies with the tools, services and advisory support to navigate switching markets, modern technologies and scale activities; 2) Launch a small-business-oriented development model for personnel development that is able to train and mobilize trained employees in professions with a lot of application; and 3) Expand access to flexible financing that is tailored to the unique needs of small companies and in particular suppliers, in support of investments in research and development, equipment, workforce and strategic growth opportunities such as mergers and acquisitions.
Since his first term, President Trump has promised a revival of production. Delivering it requires a future-oriented agenda that gives small and medium-sized manufacturers and their employees-the-backbone of the productive capacity of America-de Tools, Talent and Capital they need to survive and grow. This was an important unfinished company before the US launched a trade war. Now it’s a necessary.
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