How 6 small companies around the world deal with Trump’s chaos, including in Brazil

The tea farmer in Japan, the shoe company in Montreal, the chocolatier in Mexico: small businesses around the world have been shaken by President Donald Trump’s constantly shifting trade policies.

Trade rules have upended strategies, pricing, logistics and investments as companies try to simultaneously inform and retain their U.S. customers. Some small businesses, operating on razor-thin margins, are questioning or pausing their expansion plans in the United States.

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We spoke to six companies, from Sweden to Brazil, about how they are communicating with customers and managing uncertainty. Here’s what they said.

For a Swedish designer, sales soared and then plummeted

Asket, a Stockholm-based clothing company, sent an email to its U.S. customers in mid-August warning about possible price increases and the expiration of the de minimis exemption, which allowed tariff-free entry for goods valued at less than $800. “It’s not super sexy communication,” said August Bard Bringeus, co-founder and CEO of Asket. But this sparked a buying spree, with US sales more than doubling in 10 days.

The company kept prices stable, accepting a drop in margins. “This will probably need to change,” said Bard Bringeus, adding: “We will probably need to raise prices in the future to recover what we are losing now.” Exports from the European Union to the United States are now subject to a 15% tariff.

The uncertainty has been frustrating. “It’s not like all the European brands are going to suddenly start manufacturing in the US; it’s impossible,” said Bard Bringeus.

The United States is one of the Swedish retailer’s biggest markets, but sales in the country fell in the third quarter, when de minimis ended, and are now about 20% below last year.

“I think there’s a general aversion, probably, to buying from European brands because you have the notion that you’re going to be hit with tariffs or your order is going to be hit with customs duties,” Bard Bringeus said.

A Canadian shoe seller hit pause on US expansion

Shortly before the de minimis exemption ended, Maguire, a Montreal-based footwear company, informed its American customers that it would begin shipping products from its stores in the United States, and encouraged them to order before the loophole was closed. A wave of orders in the US followed.

About a week later, Maguire sent another email announcing a price increase. Myriam Belzile-Maguire, president and co-founder, said she raised prices by $10 to $30 in both the United States and Canada.

The company has two stores in the US, its second-largest market, but is waiting before opening more. “I want to hope for a little more stability,” Belzile-Maguire said.

Leila Kelleher, a fashion design professor at Parsons School of Design in New York who lives part of the time in Ontario, plans to try on items at a U.S. Maguire store, order them online in Canadian dollars and have them shipped to her address in Canada.

“I don’t blame any of the small businesses for raising their prices,” Kelleher said. “It’s survival right now.”

A Brazilian coffee producer waits for American customers to return

After a 50% tariff on Brazilian coffee stifled American orders, Ana Cecília Velloso, whose family owns São Luiz Estate Coffee in Carmo do Paranaíba, Brazil, had planned to skip a coffee fair in San Diego where she would promote her beans. Now that those fees have been repealed, she is considering going, but is cautious. “I need to wait for the C market to stabilize,” he wrote in one message, adding: “I will wait for my clients to come to me.”

Before the tariffs were imposed, Mariana Faerron Gutierrez, founder and CEO of Tico Coffee Roasters in Campbell, California, had planned to import Velloso’s coffee. “If the tariffs hadn’t been applied at this level,” she said, “her coffee would now be in my warehouse.”

Now, she’s trying to get Brazilian coffee as soon as she can. And while she’s optimistic that rates won’t change again this year, she’s cautious. “What is the contingency plan if something changes?” she said. “It could be tariffs again, or it could be something else.”

A Japanese matcha producer opens a branch in the US

Daiki Tanaka, who grows and sells matcha in Japan, meets many of his U.S. customers during tours and tastings at his 10-acre ad:matcha farm near Kyoto.

But the end of the de minimis exemption this year meant that many of its shipments to the United States now have a 15% tariff. He responded by creating a subsidiary in the US to import and distribute his tea, absorbing the tariff for American consumers, who make up his largest direct market. “Connection is important, so this issue of tariffs really — it makes everything more complicated,” Tanaka said.

Roby Behrens of Fremont, California, drinks a cup of matcha every morning; He and his girlfriend have been purchasing from d:matcha for several years and even visited the farm in 2023.

“We haven’t bought any more since the tariffs and maybe we won’t,” Behrens said.

Lauren Purvis, founder of Mizuba Tea Co. in Portland, Oregon, imported more than 20 tons of matcha from small producers in Japan last year. This year, tariffs cost her more than $110,000, Purvis said, and trade policy led to long delays in deliveries: She had more than $120,000 worth of Japanese matcha, shipped in August and September, stuck in Kentucky. She still expects about half of that stock.

The Trump administration in recent weeks has suspended some tariffs, including those on green tea. But Purvis wishes they had been planned more carefully from the beginning. “All they did was increase costs,” she said. “I find it hard to shake the feeling of, ‘What was the point?’”

A Mexican chocolate producer sends customers to Canada

Víctor Feliu, owner of Feliu Chocolate in Guadalajara, Mexico, was so confused by the ever-changing trade rules between Mexico and the United States that he paused his shipments to the US.

“I’m willing to pay fees and willing to do the paperwork,” he said. “But it’s very difficult if the rules change every few months.”

Although his chocolate bars are not subject to tariffs, he paused shipments to the U.S. in early September after more than a dozen packages were returned due to complications caused by the new rules, which involved things like labeling, documentation and registration, he said. It took Feliu weeks to locate the new requirements for small shipments. “We are a small company; no one tells us,” he said.

He has suggested that American customers buy his chocolate through a Canadian retailer, and his plans to sell in U.S. stores are on hold.

For a Danish retailer, mistakes are costly

Tariff-related mistakes have been costly for Cecilie Moosgaard, co-founder of Danish accessories retailer Lié Studio.

“We are seeing a lot of these errors, which means our import taxes are much higher than they should be,” Moosgaard said. On several occasions, she said, Lié Studio bags shipped to the U.S. were misclassified as made in China — subject to tariffs of up to 25 percent — rather than in Portugal, where they were made, which would have a lower rate. Errors mean unexpected costs and time spent trying to get a refund — which she is still waiting on.

The company, which sells jewelry and handbags online and at U.S. retailers, raised prices for American customers by about 20% in mid-August.

Nabila Kabir, who lives in San Francisco, waited for a trip to Copenhagen to shop at the Lié Studio store. She is also changing her spending habits.

“I’m someone who never considered myself a big vintage buyer,” she said. But, “because of price fluctuations — whether related to tariffs or inflation — I’m now looking more actively at vintage markets.”

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