Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) met with small business owners from across Colorado today, all of whom emphasized that the uncertainty of federal tariff policy has caused market chaos.
Hickenlooper was hosted by 4 Noses Brewing Company, a Broomfield-based beer company that started in 2008, at its Denver location. The senator and former governor toured the facility, as the company’s owners discussed how aluminum and wheat tariffs were impacting their business.
“The fact that we have tariffs at a time when most of the people I know who really understand economics believe that tariffs have never worked except in very surgical situations in the past,” Hickenlooper said. “Tariffs [as they are being implemented] provide a level of uncertainty that is almost untenable and ends up with people being unable to make the investments they need to make for their business to grow. We’ve seen that over the past couple of months. We are perilously close to sliding into a recession or… even stagflation.”
Before entering politics, Hickenlooper made a name for himself in Denver by opening a brewpub in the heart of the city.
“These tariffs … they’re not bringing manufacturing back to this country,” Hickenlooper said. “What they’re doing is putting an unbearable burden on the ones like you see here. Let me tell you, having been a small business owner for 25 years, the burdens that are already there are immense and [small business owners] don’t need extra anxiety and pressure from wondering if tariffs are going to stay there in a month or double in a month, or maybe go away, based on the whim of the executive in the White House.”
Tommy Bibliowicz, the CEO of 4 Noses Brewing, told reporters that his family started their business 11 years ago with “a passion for beer and community.” Today, Bibliowicz’s company employs around 60 people across Colorado.
According to Bibliowicz, the company has overcome changing markets before and that, as an independent brewery, they have strived to both keep beer affordable for their customers and offer their employees ample benefits and job opportunities. Still, tariffs on foreign aluminum and grain could severely hinder the local brew company’s production, said Bibliowicz.
“These days, our biggest challenge is really a lack of clarity. Tariffs that are now on aluminum or grain are perfect examples of these challenges,” Bibliowicz said. “It’s American manufacturing businesses like ours that face them. At a time when our industry is already navigating increased competition, not just from other breweries but from other alcohol industries, these tariffs create ongoing challenges to the health of our business.”
The owners of the local brewery were not alone in their concerns. Following the tour of the facilities, five other small business owners relayed their stories of how uncertainties caused by the administration’s tariffs were hindering their operations.
Jeff Popiel runs an environmental equipment company called GeoTech Environmental Equipment Inc., a family-owned business in Colorado that’s been around since the ‘70s.
Popiel told the senator and other attendees that the industry they’re in looks completely different than when it started. GeoTech has major business partners in China and Hong Kong, and the trade conflict has damaged their access to a vital market. The manufacturing for many of the parts Popiel’s company relies on is done in other markets, and he says the type of manufacturing they need does not exist in America.
“People ask: ‘What are you doing now with all the tariffs?’”, Popiel said. “It’s a repeat of the supply chain destruction through COVID … it’s really forced our hand to spend all the cash we can to bring in as much product as we can before January 20, which has a huge impact on inventory space, a huge impact on financing.”
Grady Cope, the CEO of Reata Engineering and Machine Works, based in Englewood, agreed with Popiel. According to Cope, the implementation of the tariff policy has been inconsistent from day to day. Cope said that he has lost foreign clients, particularly in Canada, as a direct result of the trade policy and urged a return to “normalcy”.
Jeremy Petersen runs identity Pet Nutrition, a Denver-based pet food company that specializes in healthy and organic pet food. Although Petersen’s company is based in Colorado, much of the production for their products happens in Canada, where there is access to GMO-free and chemical-free options for their ingredients, something that does not exist for the pet food industry in America. According to Petersen, since the tariffs spiked, such animosity toward American-owned companies in Canada has made it virtually impossible for them to access their market, something the 10-person company has never experienced.
“We’re a small business, we’ve been impacted greatly since the talk of tariffs back in November,” Petersen told the senator. Petersen said that they had to turn to advocacy, trying to get the attention of elected officials, as a last-ditch effort to survive as a business. “The uncertainty alone has caused massive issues and a lot of cash. We’re seeing panic buying that is greater than COVID. I’m out of 50% of my products right now because consumers are scared … Brick-and-mortar retail businesses are starting to struggle. This year has been the most difficult for us in my professional career simply because of the uncertainty.”
There had never been tariffs on pet food between the United States and Canada until very recently; now Petersen says he and businesses like his are in uncharted waters.
After the panel, the Colorado Times Recorder spoke with Gail Ross, the director of sourcing for Krimson Klover, a Boulder-based clothing manufacturer.
“Forty percent of our business is in China,” Ross said. “Prior to the reduction of tariffs to 30%, the tariffs [we were facing] were 172.5%. That’s multiple times more than the actual cost of the garment. The tariffs came down for China … It’s more than we built into our costing, our factories are taking a third of that cost, we’re taking more than a third, and then we’re passing that on to our customers.”
Ross said that while her company has tried to absorb as much of the cost of tariffs as they can, they can only do that for so long. Ross told us that newer companies she knows in her industry have been unable to take the same costs imposed and have had to cease operations.
Jack Caporal, the trade policy chair at the World Trade Center Denver, argued that tariffs would have dire consequences for Colorado businesses. According to Caporal, trade is “an engine of growth” in Colorado, with 1 in 5 jobs in the state being supported by international trade in some capacity. Trade, Caporal said, has given consumers in Colorado a choice in terms of where and how they spend their money, but also that tariffs are an “aggressive tax” that small businesses will have a hard time absorbing the cost of.
“When there are trade issues that ought to be resolved to open that market for Colorado businesses, the approach should be one that’s surgical and well thought out and well intentioned … Colorado businesses shouldn’t be caught in the crossfire of unnecessary trade wars that raise costs for consumers and businesses,” Caporal added.
Caporal emphasized that the uncertainty or “whiplash” stemming from changing tariff policies causes foreign trading partners to “become less reliant on the U.S. market.” Rather than shifting production back into the United States, Caporal argued that tariffs restrict American businesses, making it harder for them to enter international markets.
Hickenlooper and the small business owners all said that they have yet to see guidance from the Small Business Administration (SBA) for how small businesses could navigate tariffs.
Back in March, Hickenlooper, along with other Democratic senators, sent a letter to Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler asking the administration to address the economic impacts that tariffs on Canadian goods would have on small businesses.
Hickenlooper was also skeptical about claims from his Republican colleagues that American producers were more concerned with what some, like Congressman Gabe Evans, have categorized as “unfair trade practices”.
“If they [Evans] can introduce me to the farmer or agricultural producer who is concerned about these trade practices, I would love to see it,” Hickenlooper said. “I haven’t heard that from the farmers and ranchers I’ve talked to. They’re worried they’re going to lose markets because of the tariffs.”
