Donald Trump’s tariffs make our manufacturing revival hopes get tested

In a corner of a sponge-like factory in southern Massachusetts, 15 people bent over to sew machines and made professional hospital newborn equipment.

They are all everything that once was a larger manufacturing business, with most of the Teixeira family closing in 1990, reshaping their business into a largely warehousing and distribution business.

Teixeiras has been asking more questions about new companies interested in U.S. sewing services since U.S. President Donald Trump began rolling out full tariffs.

However, they rejected the proposals, which prevented the difficulties of hiring in the repression of immigrants and doubted whether demand would be sustained.

It’s just one of many signs of a manufacturing revival promised by the president, and may be much more difficult than the White House claims.

“It’s just not going to happen,” said Frank Teixeira, who joined the family business in the 1970s and oversees the demolition and reshaping of its as an accurate service company.

“Tariffs are a bad policy that will eventually bother us.”

Trump’s commitment to running for president to boost the economic situation is partly due to the tariffs he said will reduce costs and introduce them in the new golden age.

This information has proven to resonate with voters, helping the campaign to accidentally attack in the working-class sphere that has long been considered a democratic stronghold.

Among them is the Fall River base in the former textile manufacturing hub Teixeiras, where Trump’s victory marked the first victory of the Republican presidential candidate in the city for about a century.

But his plan is subject to extensive measures by experts who warn that tariffs on import taxes will raise prices for U.S. businesses and consumers and slow growth – special risks to manufacturers often rely on imported supplies.

With tariffs reaching, the nine-month period of the presidency, the gap between Trump’s rhetoric (with investments that have influx of investment into the country, and the reality on the ground like Fall River, is starting to emerge.

U.S. job growth This year, it slowed down sharplyincluding manufacturing. After the expansion after the pandemic, manufacturing companies’ salaries shrank this year, laying off 12,000 jobs last month alone.

Business surveys show that activity in the industry is shrinking.

Last month, 71% of manufacturers questioned by the Fed’s Dallas branch said tariffs on most imports ranged from 10% to 50%—already negatively impacted their operations, increasing resource costs and hurting profits.

Boss George Matouk, a maker of high-end beds on Teixeiras’ high ground beds, said tariffs from April to August have increased by more than $100,000 (£74,000) per month as they hit supplies such as cotton from India and Portugal and Portugal.

Founded in 1929 by his grandfather in 1929, the company has grown to about 300 employees in recent years, which is Mr. Matouk’s pride, who returned to his third generation to join the family business when he faced opponents after he graduated from Columbia Business School in the late 1990s.

But the sudden tariff charges forced the company to cut investments in disposable items such as new equipment and marketing.

Although many of his products differ in the United States, Mr. Matouk said he does not expect to gain any benefit from the tariffs, as higher costs prompt him to raise prices, which could put sales weight.

“Because materials are subject to tariffs like everything else, there is no benefit,” he said.

Mr Matouk said the current challenge his company faces is “frustration in new ways” because government policies are intentional.

“When no one wants to do this, we have done everything we should do to invest on an industrial base in the United States, which is really frustrating because we are now punished,” he said.

Research on the impact of Trump’s more limited tariffs on manufacturers in the first semester of the U.S. found that small industrial gains in protected industries such as steel companies far outweigh the losses of other companies that rely on parts.

But Mike van der Slesen, who runs the motorcycle jacket business Vansen Leather, said he thinks the change this year is so destructive that it is too early to make a prediction.

Mr. Van der Sleesen, who voted for Trump last year, disliked the president’s tariffs, which increased his fees by about 15% this year.

However, he shared the president’s concern that foreign companies can easily enter the U.S. market, and the U.S. hopes to sell U.S. companies that are experiencing obstacles abroad in the form of tariffs and other taxes.

“It’s a very unbalanced and unfair trade path for companies like Vanson,” said Mr Van der Sleesen. His business was founded in 1974 until 2000, before China’s Wallop of Ballop entered a global labor order, the company employed more than 160 employees.

“We shouldn’t sue them, they shouldn’t look to me, but that’s never going to happen,” he said.

Currently, the demand for his jacket (which can be sold for thousands of dollars) has stuck. He said his U.S. suppliers reported an increase in activity.

“We haven’t heard of overtime for 20 years in the textile world!” he said. “It’s hard to be sure that you can predict what will happen to it because these changes are so dramatic.”

Many Trump supporters said on the streets of the Fore River that they are still willing to give the president time for the exam.

“We should be able to make it,” Tom Teixeira said.

The 72-year-old retired transit worker voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, partially winning his message about the economy.

“I know how it is in good condition, but it won’t improve overnight,” said Mr. Teixeira, who has nothing to do with the Teixeira manufacturer.

“A year from now on, if the situation isn’t cheap, we’ll see it.”