6 hours Ago By Nick Lunemann
A Minnesota small business owner is getting a brief reprieve thanks to a 90-day tariff pause between the United States and China , but the long-term outlook remains uncertain. Beth Benike, a mother and veteran who started her business to stop babies from dropping their toys, says the temporary reduction in tariffs has given her a critical lifeline. "Yeah.
I mean, the reprieve right now, taking the tariffs from 145 down to 30 [percent] is enough where we can get our products that are stranded in China to America," Benike said. "So the first thing we're going to do is ship everything we have that's ready to go, and get it here. That's going to give us about three more months of runway to figure out what to do next.
" The 90-day suspension comes as part of ongoing trade discussions between the U.S. and China, which both countries said have the potential to address broader economic concerns.
According to a joint statement released early Monday, both sides agreed that continued "communication, cooperation and mutual respect" will guide the talks. Benike says the uncertainty remains a major challenge. "Yeah, who knows what's going to happen after 90 days? I don't trust that the 90 days is actually 90 days.
So many things change so rapidly that even though they're saying this is a 90-day thing right now, I wouldn't be surprised if it changes before that. And I don't know which way it could change, which makes it impossible to plan and make any business decisions," she said. University of Minnesota law and business professor Paul Vaaler says this temporary pause may help in the short term, but it's not a long-term solution.
"In the next 90 days, what we're going to see is a decrease in the cost of imported goods substantially," Vaaler said. "I think more importantly, we're going to have [the] availability of those goods. At 145% tariff, which is where we were last week, it's not that the costs are so high, it's just trade stops.
So Chinese trade now is going to continue, but what we're going to see is we're going to see essentially a 30% surcharge on goods that are coming from China, and that has a differential effect on really large businesses, medium-sized businesses, most importantly, those half million small businesses that are the backbone of the Minnesota economy." As the 90-day window ticks down, small business owners like Benike are left hoping this temporary relief can buy them enough time to find a long-term solution. Nick Lunemann is a photojournalist for WCCO-TV.
.
