- President Donald Trump’s tariffs have put US businesses in the crosshairs of a trade war.
- Bill Yeargin, CEO of the US boat manufacturer Correct Craft, warned about the consequences of Trump’s trade fights in an op-ed article on Monday.
- “We have found ourselves in the crosshairs of a trade war, one that will drown out the effects of tax reform and risk our industry’s promising future, taking American workers and consumers down with it,” Yeargin wrote.
- The CEO also laid out three big reasons Trump’s tariffs hurt US businesses.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs are hitting US businesses with a triple whammy, according to one manufacturing CEO.
Bill Yeargin, CEO of the US boat manufacturer Correct Craft, laid out in an op-ed article for the Washington Examiner on Monday how harmful Trump’s recent tariffs are for both his company and the US economy as a whole.
Yeargin’s firm builds a slew of popular boat brands such as Nautique, employs more than 1,300 workers, and has six manufacturing plants in the US. But despite the homegrown nature of the business, Trump’s tariffs are taking a toll, Yeargin said.
The Correct Craft CEO said Trump’s trade fights were leading to higher costs and threatening boat sales. In fact, Yeargin said, the tariffs pose an existential threat to the US boat manufacturing industry.
“We have found ourselves in the crosshairs of a trade war, one that will drown out the effects of tax reform and risk our industry’s promising future, taking American workers and consumers down with it,” he wrote.
In laying out the threat the trade war poses, Yeargin identified three ways Trump’s trade fights are contributing to pain for US manufacturers:
- Tariffs caused the price of imported parts to increase. Tariffs act as taxes on imports, so they cause the prices of the goods hit with those taxes to increase. Trump has imposed substantial tariffs on Chinese aluminum sheet, an important element for boat manufacturing. Additionally, Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods added an extra duty to pieces of boat engines, and the next wave of tariffs could hit “300 different component parts used by the marine industry,” Yeargin said. So Correct Craft’s costs are increasing, cutting into profits…..more here