President Donald Trump’s plan to level the playing field when it comes to international trade is focusing in on India. He announced a 50% tariff on goods from India earlier this week. India has since responded by delaying plans to buy U.S. weapons and aircrafts.
While this plays out on the global stage, businesses in Colorado are already worried about the impacts.
As the owner and CEO of Blonc Virgin Hair Extensions, Bianca Powell said her main import source is India, with 90% of her inventory imported from the United States ally.
“With our raw, single-donor hair extensions, which includes clip-ins, bonds, bundles, wefts, anything you can think of,” Powell said.
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India is one of dozens of countries that were subject to the president’s tariffs on imports, which kicked in Thursday.
“My heart dropped,” Powell said. “We went from paying $200 to possibly $500 on a $2,000 order. So we would significantly have to raise our prices on our products to cover the cost of the tariff. Now, I have to call FedEx and get a clear understanding of how we’re going to be billed for this new, added-on increase.”
“When you put the new import tariff, consumers have to pay,” said Kishore Kulkarni, an economics professor at MSU Denver.
Kulkarni said, while India is not a large exporter to the United States, the U.S. still imports about $100 billion worth of Indian goods, which is small compared to Mexico, China, Japan or Canada.
“If you have a business, which is quite dependent on the Indian imports, then, you obviously are going to see a much more bad consequence of this,” Kulkarni said.
While India has 21 days to respond to the potential additional tariffs before they go into effect, Kulkarni said this still causes a lot of uncertainty for local businesses impacted.
“Colorado is not a big importer for Indian goods,” Kulkarni said. “But, for any business, uncertainty is not very good because a blurred future for businesses is not a very good sign for them to prosper.”
Powell says she’ll have to raise prices soon to cover the increased costs. Another option is having products shipped through different locations to avoid the tariffs, which will still leave her with longer delivery times.
“The resources are impacting everybody around the world,” Powell said. “So I just hope that they can all come to an agreement.”
