This Virginia Small Business Is in Limbo As Owner Sues To Stop Trump’s Tariffs
Even after scoring a huge victory against President Donald Trump’s tariffs in federal court last week, David Levi still isn’t sure if his small business will survive the trade war.
“It’s just been exhausting how uncertain it is,” Levi, who started MicroKits in 2020 to get more kids interested in the hands-on science of electrical engineering, tells Reason.
Imports are essential to the kits that Levi and his one employee assemble in a warehouse near Charlottesville, Virginia. For example, a kit that teaches kids how to build a small theremin requires a circuit board, resistors, capacitors, bits of wire, and plastic molding to hold batteries and other pieces in place.
“I don’t have millions and millions of dollars to spin up my own circuit board assembly line, and plastic mold injection, and everything,” Levi says.
Though he is running a small, niche operation, Microkits is in many ways a microcosm of American manufacturing. Levi provides the ideas and designs, and he oversees the final assembly of his products in America, but those products combine parts sourced from around the globe. About 60 percent of his inputs come from China, Levi says, which puts h
Article from Reason.com
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