With the Trump administration moving ahead on sweeping tariff hikes, Boulder businesses are scrambling to assess the damage — and brace for what’s next.
Local business leaders and trade experts warn that the latest round of tariffs — among the steepest in nearly a century — could threaten the survival of small and midsize companies, perhaps especially those in the city’s signature outdoor industry.
“Everything is very last minute, so it’s hard for planning for a lot of the companies,” said Erik Edwards, a licensed customs broker with the Supply Chain Collective, who specializes in helping companies mitigate the impact of trade policies. He said regional companies that manufacture their products abroad are struggling to quote materials to their customers, and many are unable to absorb the price of tariffs.
“I don’t know if people truly appreciate how small a lot of companies’ margins truly are,” he said. “These amounts are so high you almost inevitably have to pass something on in some way, shape or form.”
President Trump’s plan includes a 10% across-the-board tariff, a 145% duty on Chinese goods and a third “reciprocal tariff” tier — the steepest — which has been paused for 90 days. Researchers have estimated that a 10% tariff would cost the average American household between $1,700 and $2,350 a year.
Small to midsize companies — which make up the majority of Colorado’s businesses — will have a particularly difficult time absorbing those costs, Edwards said.
Outdoor brands face growing pressure
Outdoor gear and apparel brands that rely on imported materials and overseas manufacturing — including companies that market themselves as proudly local — are likely to be hit hard.
Even Melanzana, the cult-favorite outdoor clothing company based in Leadville, imports its materials — in that case, from Thailand.
Trent Bush, co-founder of Artilect, a Boulder-based performance apparel brand, said many local brands opt to produce goods in China because the barriers to entry are lower. “There will be some brands that are facing critical, possibly business-ending situations,” he said.
“A huge percentage of hard goods” – think carabiners, bikes, any gear that’s not cut and sewn – is also manufactured in China, he said.
The ripple effects are expected to extend beyond manufacturers. Michael McClurg, who works for Trango, Boulder-based climbing gear brand that imports from several countries, including China, said the tariffs will likely push companies to work less with retailers — a shift that could have downstream effects.
That “will cause a lot of the smaller gear shops to lose a lot of business,” McClurg said. “I think we will see a lot less variety in gear shops and a lot less stock because they can’t take the risk of having too much inventory.”
Tariffs spark European backlash
Bush said that the Trump administration’s actions are not only driving up production costs but also dampening international demand.
“A vast majority of our sales are in Europe,” he said. “The current policies that are being doled out — not just the tariff situation, but our turning our back on the European Union — is creating a pretty severe backlash in the European customer base.”
The resulting “boycott American brand sentiment” is “really concerning for us,” Bush said.
Manufacturing is not returning to the U.S.
Despite the administration’s goal of reviving domestic manufacturing, industry leaders say that’s simply not realistic.
In a letter to some Colorado Congressional legislators, Bush argued that tariffs would not bring technical clothing production back to the U.S. “The actual reality is that even if Americans had the desire to pay significantly more for inferior quality and performance in technical apparel, it would be impossible to fulfill even the smallest percentage of demand,” he wrote.
“We moved on in the 90s, in so many respects,” he said. “That knowledge base is gone, the possibility of even making the machinery is gone. And the raw materials in particular [are gone.]”
McClurg shared a similar view about manufacturing gear. “The infrastructure does not exist and would take years to build up,” he said. “The labor costs [and] cost of goods would be significantly higher, and I don’t think the US labor force is interested in doing a lot of the soft or hard good manufacturing.”
While it’s too early to fully gauge the financial impact, Edwards encouraged companies to seek expert guidance.
In a talk hosted by the Boulder Chamber on April 18, he outlined what the new tariffs could mean for the local economy — and you can watch the full video on the Chamber’s YouTube page.
