The owner of a Kalamazoo art supply store says her business cannot simply switch to domestic products in the wake of the Trump Administration’s tariffs.
At Kalamazoo Dry Goods, owner Rebecca Macleery estimates that about 95% of the supplies she sells to artists and hobbyists are imported from Europe, the United Kingdom or Japan.
Macleery said United States manufacturers don’t have the materials or expertise to make many of these specialty products here.
“Some of these companies have hundreds of years of tradition. We can't just create manufacturing processes in the United States, nor can we can we just suddenly have the knowledge and the experience to make these supplies here,” Macleery said.
Kalamazoo Dry Goods does sell some American-made products. But Macleery said the U.S. brands still rely on foreign imports. Some paint pigments can only be found in Japan and Europe, and aluminum tubes for artists' paints are produced overseas.
“We don't create gum arabic here. Gum arabic comes from trees in another country, and that's an essential component of watercolors."
Macleery said she had already noticed that customers were becoming more conservative in their spending as tariffs loomed.
“I am going to have to deal with them as they come and look at price increases as the tariffs are implemented," she said.
The owner of two Asian restaurants and a grocery in Kalamazoo said he doesn’t expect tariffs to increase prices right away.
Anson Liu, the owner of Pacific Rim Foods and Cravings in Kalamazoo, and his new restaurant, Cravings Corners in Texas Corners, said that when tariffs on imports do hit, it won’t be good for customers or businesses.
“A lot of people have these false narratives that think, 'oh, you know, you're going to jack up these prices so you can make more money.'
"The reality is, we sell way less product when it's expensive, so we’d rather prices to be stable and we can move some volume.”
Liu said the pandemic taught him to stockpile certain nonperishable items in the Kalamazoo store’s large basement. He said he has 15 pallets of to-go boxes and enough of other goods to keep overall prices down for a little while.
“So, we could wait and see in the next month or so how this all plays out.”
After that, Liu said, he’s at the mercy of his suppliers.
