This article is featured in the 2025 Homecoming Special Issue.
Small business owners across the Upper Valley are scrambling to adjust to a new wave of tariffs introduced by the Trump administration in August.
Morgan Brophy, who serves as president of the Upper Valley Business Alliance — an organization representing local businesses “of all sizes” — wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that tariffs are a “real challenge” for UVBA members.
“Rising costs are directly affecting local employers’ ability to grow, hire and keep prices stable for consumers,” Brophy wrote. “The Upper Valley community relies on a healthy local economy, and when these added costs are passed on to individuals, they create a ripple effect that touches everyone.”
The August tariffs lifted the average US tariff rate from less than 2.5% to over 18%, according to Yale University Budget Lab analysts. Targeted countries include India, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
LockNLube owner Jay Boren Tu’16 said the vast majority of his products — such as lubrication and tire inflation tools — come from South Africa and India and are now taxed at 30% and 50% respectively, forcing his West Lebanon-based business to raise prices.
“If we hadn’t [raised prices], we would have gone bankrupt,” Boren said. “Our profitability has taken a major hit, so we don’t have the profits that we used to have to invest in raises, bonuses and benefits for our employees.”
Lou’s Restaurant and Bakery owner Jarett Berke Tu’17 said prices for imported ingredients have increased.
“For years and years, cocoa traded on the commodity market for about $2,000,” said Berke. “For the last year or so, it’s been up above $6,000.”
Berke also said the price of coffee — which is imported to the US from countries including Brazil, Colombia, Switzerland and Canada — has increased roughly 54% in the last year.
“It’s incumbent on us as small business owners to keep up with price increases,” Berke said. “Our vendors have no qualms about increasing the prices on us when the products become more expensive.”
Boren said that tariffs “create inflation” and price increases — “ironically” discouraging consumers from shopping at local businesses who have had to raise their prices, like LockNLube.
“Where they used to buy from LockNLube, an American company that reinvests in their community, they now buy the cheaper option,” Berke said. “That cheaper option is drop shipped directly from a Chinese factory into an Amazon warehouse.”
Boren said that uncertainty from changing tariff policies has made it difficult for small businesses to plan ahead and invest confidently.
“Business thrives on certainty,” said Boren. “Think of it as a game … if the rules are changing every other turn, you can’t make long-term plans. Right now, the whole world is in this weird limbo holding pattern where no one knows how to strategize.”
The uncertainty surrounding tariffs will likely remain for the next several months as negotiations with China, Canada and Mexico — which source a combined 36% of US imports — continue.
BocaSoca owner Conicia Jackson said a “good amount” of their ingredients are imported from countries like Canada and Mexico, which has caused uncertainty for her business while negotiations are ongoing.
“There’s always that looming fear in the background as a small business owner,” Jackson said. “It’s going to be tough for all of us going ahead — ‘us’ meaning working class people.”
Berke agreed that uncertainty “makes it hard” for small businesses to “plan, forecast and analyze.” However, Berke said his worries are somewhat alleviated by the fact that most tariffs have been temporary thus far.
“As we’ve seen, it’s not really a permanent policy,” Berke said. “It appears to be just a negotiating tool that this administration is using. I don't know if that’s a good method or not, but I do know that it certainly impacts small businesses like ours.”
