Wendy Brugh, owner of Dry Ridge Farm in Marshall, North Carolina, said that President Donald Trump’s pricing announcement was like “pour salt into an injury that begins to heal”.
During a gathering of small businesses on small businesses on Wednesday, she said that prices will increase the costs of “everything, fertilizer and food to building materials and tractors”, hitting the agricultural community while it is still recovering from harvesting after Hurricane Helene.
“We are personally faced with the uncertainty of how reprisal prices will affect our most important expenses, our animal diet,” Brugh told ABC News, Asheville Affiliate Wlos.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new prices in the Rose Garden to the White House, April 2, 2025, in Washington, DC
Mark Schiefelbein / AP
Brugh and other owners of small businesses weigh on the prices that Trump unveiled against all American business partners on Wednesday afternoon. He described the prices as “friendly reciprocal” and will focus on the nations he affirmed were the worst traders in commercial relations with the United States
The new measures – which Trump has described as “historical” – include a minimum basic rate of 10% on all trade partners and in addition, more targeted punitive withdrawals, including China, the European Union and Taiwan.
“We will charge them about half of what they are and billed us,” he said, adding, “because we are very nice.”
Hendrick Svendsen, the owner of a furniture store in Merriam, Kansas, told ABC News on Wednesday that he had decided to close his store due to the announcement of Trump’s prices.
“We have just made the decision we are going to close, we were released in August,” said Svendsen.
He said there was no way to continue the store operations using products manufactured in the United States, with 90% of their items carried out abroad.
“I do not think that the manufacture of furniture will never return to the United States in North Carolina, where it was made, it is like a ghost city,” said Svendsen on ABC News Live. “Regarding skills and workers, I don’t think we have this in the United States”
In the United States, furniture manufacturing jobs have decreased in recent months, with 336,900 reported in February, according to the American work statistics office.
Commerce secretary, Howard Lunick, holds a painting while President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new prices in the Rose Garden in the White House, April 2, 2025, in Washingto, DC
Mark Schiefelbein / AP
Simon Bryant, owner of a restaurant in San Francisco, told ABC Station Kgo These food costs have already been difficult to manage due to the bird flu, and prices could make things even more difficult.
“The reality is that everyone pays higher prices,” said Bryant. “We have to understand what to do as a community.”
However, there are optimistic individuals about prices, including Duane Paddock, the owner of a Chevrolet dealer in Buffalo, New York. He told ABC News Live that he had seen the best sales in 13 years.
Although he was uncertain of the exact impact of the prices, he said that he hoped that Trump’s announcement is the “best thing for our country” and that his dealer will continue to “keep the prices as low as possible and make our fair share to help customers”.
“Whether President Trump was a democratic or republican, I must have confidence in my president and that’s what I choose to do,” said Paddock.
He also highlighted the importance of these prices to make products in the United States.
“It is an excellent opportunity for people to return with manufacturing and have the opportunity to have a big middle class life and increase their compensation over time,” said Paddock.
James Evans, a manufacturer who produces car parts in the United States, told Baltimore ABC Affiliate Wmar The prices will be “perfect for us in six months to a year probably”.
“I think that in three, four years, it should set up and other people who make here in America to succeed,” said Evans. “I agree to cope with headaches for the next six months to a year and I hope things go as I think they are going to go and then we will be well, but perhaps not. Only time will say.”
In South Carolina, shrimp sensors are also satisfied with Trump’s price announcement. Rocky Magwood told the subsidiary of Charleston ABC WCIV that he could now “sell everything” that he catches. According to the Alliance of southern shrimp94% of the shrimp consumed in the United States are imported, India and Ecuador providing almost 70%.
“This is the best thing we see,” said Magwood. “Maybe people will want to buy our shrimp more. I cannot say about politics in one way or another because I am not in politics. This is not what feeds my family.”
But Leah Ashburn, president and executive officer of Highland Brewing in North Carolina, said that going to American production is not possible in all industries, especially her business, which relies on aluminum to make beer cans. Although there are existing aluminum manufacturers in the United States, Canada is still the fourth largest primary aluminum supplier, behind China, India and Russia, according to the Canadian government.
In 2021, the United States represented less than 2% of world aluminum production, according to a Congress Research Service Report.
“The United States simply cannot rotate to make aluminum cans,” Ashburn told Wlos. “The mining is not carried out here. Aluminum is brought to 95% other countries, and we depend on Canada. Efforts to make aluminum here would be complex, expensive and will take a long time. It would not come early enough.”
She also said that her business could not increase their prices because consumers have “reached their limit on what they are going to pay for a six pack”.
The basic rate rate of 10% comes into force on April 5, according to senior managers of the White House. The kind “reciprocal” rates come into force on April 9 at 12:01 p.m., officials said, and will affect around 60 countries.
ABC News’ Jaclyn Lee.
