Iraq Veteran Says Trump Tariffs Sinking Her Baby Products Business
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A business owner and U.S. Army veteran says that President Donald Trump's tariffs on China have posed an "existential threat" to her company and warned that these could spell disaster for America's broader small business community.
Beth Benike founded her company, Busy Baby LLC, along with her brother Eric in 2017, with the aim of helping parents manage their lively and active children. As well as its flagship product, a suction cup placemat for "busy babies," the company now offers a range of products from travel bibs to teething spoons—growing into a sizeable operation generating millions in annual revenue.
However, Benike told Newsweek that the introduction of higher tariffs, affecting Chinese products in particular, has left her unable to import products from her manufacturer and is struggling to save her small business.
Benike, whose career in the U.S. Army included stints in Bosnia and deployments in Kuwait and Iraq, said she was unsurprised by the announcement of tariffs on China—which were floated by Trump on the campaign trail—and initially believed her business would be able to swallow the increased costs.
Beth Benike with her brother Eric. Benike is seen standing in the Busy Baby warehouse in Minnesota.
Beth Benike with her brother Eric. Benike is seen standing in the Busy Baby warehouse in Minnesota.
Beth Benike
However, as the rates increased—from 10 percent to 20 percent, to 104, to 125—she began fearing for the future of Busy Baby.
The effective 145 percent tariff now in place, Benike said, is "literally impossible" for her to afford, and has left $158,000 worth of paid-for inventory stranded in China. Her GoFundMe campaign has raised a portion of the $229,100 needed just to pay these new import taxes, and Benike said she only has enough inventory in the U.S. for three more months.
Should her company go under, Benike said there would be a "massive ripple effect of other small businesses," including those who "don't have anything to do with this issue."
"We have agencies we use to help us. We pay them monthly as advisers to help us with that business. I pay a bookkeeper, an accountant, email marketing people," she said. "If I go out of business, every single one of those businesses now loses that money that they were counting on from my business every month."
Beth Benike and her brother, Eric, at Busy Baby's warehouse in Minnesota.
Beth Benike and her brother, Eric, at Busy Baby's warehouse in Minnesota.
Beth Benike
Asked about the prospect of reshoring manufacturing to avoid the new duties—one of the policy's intended outcomes—Benike said she had spent weeks "digging into this," but that doing so for the Busy Baby mat would result in a roughly 60 percent price increase that customers "aren't going to pay."
As well as price, Benike said it was a question of infrastructure, and the superior range and quantity of specialized manufacturing capabilities China's export-heavy economy has developed.
"China has been doing this for five decades," she said. "They have mastered it. They are efficient."
Benike added: "We have three months right now of staying in business. We don't have 16 to 20 weeks to move our manufacturing and set up at a new place. Just none of that makes sense for us."
Regarding potential price increases—already adopted by some companies to cope with the rising import taxes—she said this would only be viable or effective once the products were already in the country, and that small businesses lack the available capital necessary to import now and adjust their business model later.
Benike believes small businesses should be granted an exemption from the tariffs—like the reprieve given to the tech industry by Trump in mid-April, which she said would benefit corporations like Apple, calling it "really unfair."
"If the mission is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., small businesses like mine aren't going to be the ones to do it," she said. "It's going to be the big businesses that have the pocketbooks and the volume of sales."
Beth Benike pitches her Busy Baby mat on Season 12 of "Shark Tank."
Beth Benike pitches her Busy Baby mat on Season 12 of "Shark Tank."
Beth Benike
This idea has received backing in recent weeks, with Representative Kelly Morrison, a Minnesota Democrat, writing to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in mid-April to request that small businesses be spared the effects of the administration's "sweeping tariff policy."
"On April 11, the Trump Administration issued a temporary exemption for smart phones, computers, and other electronics, excluding them from the 125% 'reciprocal tariffs' levied on Chinese imports," the congresswoman's read. "While we welcome the suspension of these tariffs to provide relief to American consumers, we remain concerned that the Administration is more attuned to the needs of large corporations than small businesses."
On Wednesday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce similarly sought an exemption for small business importers, as well as for products that cannot be easily sourced domestically.
"The Chamber requests the administration take immediate action to save America's small businesses and stave off a recession," the group wrote in a letter Lutnick as well as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, responding to a reporter's question on the Chamber of Commerce letter, said that relief for small businesses would come "in the form of the largest tax cut in American history."
Benike said customs authorities could easily implement this exemption by simply verifying an importer's small business registration. However, she said the idea has yet to gain enough traction, with a disappointing level of support coming from the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Last week, SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler, a former Georgia Republican senator, praised the Trump administration for addressing an "unsustainable" trade deficit and deceptive trading practices by foreign nations.
"What President Trump is doing is standing up for the American worker, for small businesses, for farmers, and saying enough," Loeffler told Fox News.
Benike will soon be travelling to Washington, D.C., to accept the award for Minnesota Small Business Person of the Year and told Newsweek she plans to plead the case further with those on the Hill.
Newsweek has reached out to the Commerce Department and SBA via email for comment.
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