FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 13, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
ICYMI — Kansas City Area Small Businesses and Farmers Warn Tariffs Are Driving Up Prices
At a press conference Wednesday at Rochester Brewing and Roasting Company in Kansas City, small business owners and farmers from across the region delivered a clear message: tariffs are hurting the communities they call home. With supply chains disrupted, inventory costs soaring, and customers cutting back, small business owners discussed the many challenges and economic uncertainty from tariffs.
- KCUR | Kansas City small businesses say they’ll have to raise prices to survive Trump’s tariffs
For small businesses like Rochester Brewing and Roasting Company in Kansas City, general manager David Bulcock said the situation is “unsettling.” Due to the tariff on aluminum, Bulcock said it’s likely he’ll have to increase the price on some goods sold at their brewery and coffee shop.
- KCTV | As peak wedding season arrives with tariffs, metro florists forced to increase prices
Sheryl White has run the shop for 40 years, but has never seen her prices jump this high.
“It’s hard to know. We’ve faced challenges before, but we knew what they were, we knew how to deal with them, or we figured it out. This is hard,” White explained…
”It’s very hard to figure out what we’re going to do. We know prices are going to have to go up, and we hate it,” White admitted. “We don’t want people to think we’re gouging them, but prices have to go up, or we won’t stay in business.”
- Kansas City Star | KC brewery, other local businesses call out Trump’s tariffs: ‘Real harm’
Melissa Miller, director of the World Trade Center Kansas City, said the biggest concern expressed by the local business community is the lack of a consistent tariff policy. The White House has raised and lowered tariff rates multiple times on a variety of countries and products in recent months. “The unpredictability and instability make it harder for long-term business planning,” Miller said.
- The Packer | KC Farmers, Business Leaders Warn Tariffs are Crushing Local Ag, Trade
“Farmers are not price makers; they are price takers,” Levendofsky said. “They don’t get to say, ‘This is what I need for my soybeans, or this is what you’ll pay for my cattle.’ The added cost from tariffs? [They] eat that. And they’re already being crushed.”
He emphasized many farmers rely heavily on imports such as Canadian potash for fertilizer, which is now significantly more expensive under the new tariffs. A recent example he cited involved a North Dakota farmer forced to pay a 25% tariff — amounting to an extra $225,000 — on a $900,000 air seeder purchased from Canada.
“These tariffs mean higher costs and lower prices,” Levendofsky said. “That’s a formula for family farms going under.”
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