Trump’s economy has 'shaken' the faith of Christian entrepreneurs

As a combination of the war with Iran and an ever-shifting tariff regime drives inflation to the highest rates since the pandemic, President Donald Trump’s economy has “shaken” the faith of Christian small business owners who question whether they can still afford to operate in the United States. According to Christianity Today, Trump’s erratic tariff policy has not only driven up the cost of doing business, but it has threatened the “goodwill” business owners once held with their international suppliers.

“When President Donald Trump took office for the second time,” writes Christianity Today, “the average tax on imported goods was 2.4 percent, according to Yale University’s Budget Lab. Since then, tariff rates have stretched as high as 28 percent. Last month, they hovered around an average effective rate of 11.8 percent. Tariff rates have fluctuated with the president’s whims. Some tariffs have targeted specific products: steel, aluminum, timber, and more recently, pharmaceuticals. Other tariffs have hit nearly all imported goods.”

These cost hikes have hit entrepreneurs like Christian-inspired product producer Erica Campbell hard. Usually at this time of year, she told Christianity Today, she would already be starting to excitedly consider her Christmas sales. Instead, “it’s causing her to lose sleep” as “the Trump administration’s tariffs have thrown a wrench into Campbell’s Christmas planning, raising supplier prices and pumping unpredictability into the landscape for her and other business owners.”

“I think for a lot of small businesses — and I suspect most Christian businesses fall under this — we’re not working with huge, massive amounts of corporate money,” said Campbell. And now, while expenses had already failed to come down to their pre-pandemic levels, she’s also being hit by increased shipping and import costs due to a range of pressures from the Trump economy. According to Christianity Today, “When the price of goods rose seemingly overnight, she put off plans to expand into an office space."

While some of her customers have asked her why she doesn’t move her production to the U.S., she explains that the high costs of domestic manufacturing would make her prices unaffordable, tripling them in some cases. She’s also encountered issues with production quantity. While Chinese factories are flexible in regard to quantities, U.S. manufacturers who produce in massive numbers for corporations like Target or Walmart “won’t even begin to talk” to her about her 500-1000 item orders. Campbell says she’s trying to wait out the economic turmoil, but it is “testing her faith.”

“It’s so unpredictable that at this point, I’m just having to hand that over,” she said, “because it’s heavier than I have the capacity to worry about.”

Others have expressed similar problems with businesses that depend on overseas suppliers. Matt Caputo runs a popular deli and market in Salt Lake City, which is renowned for its exotic offerings. He is quick to emphasize the importance of his international partners.

“These are, you know, artisans,” he said. “They’re like the equivalent to a music fan of a rock star. They’re irreplaceable.” He notes his Brazilian chocolate producer, for example, who makes chocolate out of wild cacao pods located only in the Amazon. “It’s become extremely popular. People love it. It tastes unlike anything else. It’s literally wild, harvested from the Amazon, the only place in the world where this specific, unique genetic variety exists.” But over the course of Trump’s second term, tariffs have eroded the goodwill Caputo has built with his suppliers, particularly during last summer, when Trump slapped Brazil with a 50 percent tariff rate.

“You know, we don’t grow a lot of cacao beans in America,” Caputo noted. “The biggest frustration for me is that we have proved ourselves, our company, as being worthy of our overseas suppliers giving us a disproportionate amount of their investment. Historically, we’ve been a very dependable place to do business.”

But as Christianity Today explains, “the tariffs have shaken that faith. Caputo has seen partners pulling away their investments from the United States, with some choosing to divert less of their supply to the U.S. or trying to find more partners elsewhere.”

“Say what you will about the general Republican platform, you can generally count on them trying to make a stable environment for business,” Caputo said. “That has been totally upended.”