During a press briefing on Monday, Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) slammed President Trump’s tariff policy for its effect on small businesses.
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00:00Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Leader Schumer and Senator Klobuchar and Senator Markey for your legislation, and especially thank you to all the entrepreneurs who are here today to tell about how your businesses are affected by this chaos and uncertainty that President Trump's reckless trade war is causing for all of you.
00:23My constituent, Beth, who is with us today, was just named as Senator Klobuchar's Minnesota Small Business Person of the Year, and her baby products were making their way onto the shelves of some of the biggest retailers in the country. She should be celebrating that, but instead, she is worried about keeping her business afloat, and as Beth says, that's heartbreaking, but it is also real.
00:46And you can see from the people standing with us today that this is not a political issue for them. This is not about politics. This is about the survival of their businesses, the survival of their dreams.
00:57And I think that Beth's story shows us so clearly that the randomness and the chaotic approach to tariffs are putting small businesses like hers and all of these at risk, and they are hurting people's capacity to make payroll and pay rent, and they are hurting our economy, and they are hurting American consumers.
01:16And it is ironic that we are celebrating, our Republican colleagues are celebrating small national small business week this week, when what is really happening to American small businesses is just a huge challenge.
01:30Small business owners, small business owners, as we know, are resilient, they are creative, and they are constantly trying to figure out how to make it work, but how can you do that when you have no idea of what is around the next corner, you have no idea of how you're going to be able to control costs, and you don't have a million dollars sitting in your bank account to help you navigate the ups and downs of this chaos that has been unleashed.
01:53I think that one of the things that drives me the most crazy about this is that we have big companies like Apple, who have a connection in the White House, they know who to call, they have the wherewithal to give a million dollars to President Trump's inauguration ceremony, they get seated right up there on the dais on inauguration day, when the people standing with us today have no capacity to accomplish that, and what happens?
02:22Apple gets a carve out, and these guys are left holding the bag, and that is wrong, and we cannot put up with it.