Within such companies — the U.S. economy’s so-called backbone — however, largely the very opposite is true. It’s hard enough running your own business. But it gets even harder when you have to deal with the shroud of uncertainty that the chaotic tariff policy presents.

“Small business owners are scrappy,” said Jane Veron, co-founder and CEO of The Acceleration Project, a nonprofit organization offering operational support to small business owners. “But this uncertainty is challenging to navigate; not knowing is what is stalling decision-making.”

Any increased tariff-related costs may make it inherently harder to hire people. But not knowing when the next stage of a tariff may be introduced, or even that it may be withdrawn, further adds to concerns about planning for any given business.

Of her company’s over 4,000 clients, 70% have already been affected by increased costs, Veron said. Another 20% expect their costs to increase.

Who’s paying?

While the supposed idea behind tariffs is to increase the competitiveness of domestic U.S. companies, the reality for most small businesses is that they have to pay the extra costs if they import anything from overseas. It isn’t the exporters, in other words, who are sucking up the extra costs.

The Bee’s Knees British Imports, for example, is a Massachusetts-based business offering quality British-made and designed products. Not all the raw materials, however, are manufactured in the United Kingdom; instead, the business relies on global supply chains.

Increased tariffs have been a drain on the company’s bottom line, said owner Lucinda Sears.

“While we have increased prices, on some items where the tariff is higher, such as textiles from India, we cannot pass the entire tariff on, so we have to eat some of that,” she said. “From an operational perspective, understanding and managing the tariff changes has taken a lot of time and effort.”

The myth that it is the overseas supplier who is dealing with any extra tariff costs is also smashed by statistics showing that a whopping 96% of those costs are paid by U.S. importers, said Rebecca Homkes, an economist and professor at London Business School.

“While we have a better understanding of the short-term impacts of tariff policies on businesses and consumers, the extreme uncertainty — political, legal, and economic — means that we are far from knowing what the medium to longer-term effects will be,” she warned.

Canary in a coal mine

Even if such longer-term effects are harder to gauge, it might be possible, therefore, to have a clearer idea now about current costs to businesses, given that tariffs have been around a while. Indeed, estimates suggest a range of $85 billion to $99 billion for small and medium-sized companies, according to Jesse Mitchell, director of business development at Strader-Ferris International, a customs brokerage and cross-border logistics company.

But the uncertainty around tariff policy is very likely affecting smaller businesses far more, as they lack the scale of larger companies to switch supply chains more easily.

“Small businesses usually don’t have that luxury or the resources,” said Rathna Sharad, CEO of global customs logistics company FlavorCloud.

As a result, the pain such smaller businesses experience is likely to show up faster and more visibly than in their larger counterparts. Such companies employ almost half the U.S. population and represent about 43% of the country’s GDP, according to John Lash, group vice president of supply chain platform e2open.

“Small and mid-sized businesses are often the clearest lens through which to view the real-world effects of tariff policy,” Lash stressed about small- and medium-sized businesses.

“They lack the scale and resources of large multinationals, so the impacts of higher costs, compliance burdens, and policy uncertainty show up faster and more visibly,” Lash said. “As with any major policy shift, there are winners and losers, but the adjustment costs for SMBs are real, immediate, and often underestimated.”

Legal clarity, or lack of it

One other aspect that smaller businesses have been dealing with, on top of their overall uncertainty, is whether they are owed tariff refunds. The recent Supreme Court decision didn’t directly address that issue, and it’s likely subject to years of litigation.

Other legal challenges are likely to follow the Trump administration’s efforts to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling against its tariff regime.

Trump’s new 10% global tariffs took effect on Feb. 23. It’s part of a White House effort to preserve the president’s trade agenda after the Supreme Court’s adverse decision. Three days earlier, Trump signed an executive order authorizing the 10% import tax — just hours after the Supreme Court decision. He subsequently threatened to raise the global tariff rate to 15%.

The high court remains likely to rule against some of these tariff workarounds, thought by international trade law attorney Jennifer Smith-Veluz of Butzel law firm to be an overall majority of those Trump is trying to put in place.

The Supreme Court is “extremely skeptical of the government’s position,” Smith-Veluz said.

Still, justices may not necessarily issue clear guidance on precisely how much companies hurt by the past Trump tariff regime should get, said London Business School’s Homkes.

“This will get messy, and most small businesses do not have the legal counsel, or frankly, time and mindshare to dedicate to the process; so, it’s another area where they will be hurt disproportionately,” she said.

Some smaller companies have been able to adapt and, as they did with some of the consequences of COVID-19, have strengthened their supply chain resilience, making for more efficient businesses, said Bill Currence, founder and managing partner of veteran-owned Toledo, Ohio-based Cornerstone Consulting Organization.

But the uncertainty engendered by tariffs is still ever-present.

“About the time you have learned and reacted to tariff impact, they change, tipping the apple cart over again,” Currence said.

It seems the only thing certain about tariffs is, therefore, chaos and uncertainty. That is the bigger challenge, perhaps even more so than the additional related costs.

“The uncertainty piece is harder to quantify because it does not show up as a single line item,” said Emil Stefanutti, CEO of Gaia Dynamics, an artificial intelligence-driven platform helping companies navigate tariff and supply chain issues. “It shows up as delayed decisions, shorter planning cycles, and constant repricing and re-sourcing work. If you do not have the scale, tooling, or specialized staff to re-model scenarios continuously, uncertainty itself can become as costly as the tariff rate.”

Small and medium-sized enterprises saw operating margins fall by 1.5 percentage points between the first and third quarters of 2025, compared with just 0.2 percentage points for larger businesses, Maxime Darmet, senior economist for the U.S., France, and the U.K. at Allianz Trade, pointed out. Their taxes, including tariffs, also rose more sharply, he added.

So, the effects on smaller companies of such a chaotic tariff landscape may already be there.

SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN TRUMP’S SWEEPING ‘LIBERATION DAY’ TARIFFS

While longer-term effects may still be much harder to gauge.

“The biggest difference isn’t just the tariffs themselves, it’s the unpredictability around them,” said Nicholas Ovanessian, sales team lead at New York-based OEC Group. “In some cases, companies that produce domestically or compete with imports may see some benefit, but for most of the small and mid-sized importers we work with, the story has been more about adapting to higher costs than gaining an advantage.”

Nick Thomas is a writer based in Denver.