SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump announced a pause on reciprocal tariffs with countries besides China on Wednesday. But local businesses in Utah remain concerned for the future.
"The sad thing is, I thought this was the year I was going to make enamel pins and washi tape, keychains, things like that, and a lot of those, enamel pins especially, cannot be manufactured in America,” said Megan Hindman, a local artist who does illustrations.
Hindman said putting tariffs on imports will hurt her business prospects and worries about continuing to create and sell prints of her art.
"The vinyl that’s used, any of the machines that are made to produce those, print those, cut those out, the inks, all of that would be imported,” she explained.
Hindman is already seeing the impacts of tariff talks on other artists.
"I’ve seen so many people posting about how they're closing their shop or putting a hold on their shop because they're not sure if their business is going to be viable anymore,” she added.
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Officials with the Utah Inland Port Authority hope that once the dust settles and companies set up manufacturing plants in the U.S., they will see Utah as the place to do that.
"This is why the state of Utah has an Inland Port Authority, it’s for moments like this when we need to connect our businesses to their global marketplace,” explained Ben Hart, Executive Director, Utah Inland Port Authority. “How do we make sure we’ve got good logistics, and the opportunity to get goods to and from the state of Utah, and then also how do we make sure that we're making room for future manufacturing here in the state of Utah."
Until then, Hindman and the rest of the world will be watching.
“A lot of us are really just holding our breath, and not exactly sure what move to make."
