The signs of a contracting economy are hitting small businesses hard, even as President Donald Trump announces, and then delays, another massive 145 percent tariff on a U.S. trading partner. The Wall Street Journal reports the owner of a San Francisco card-game company was recently driven to cash in his money-market funds, while the founder of a Colorado tent-making company is having to seek investors. Another Colorado company that makes watches and jewelry is delaying signing a new office lease, and a New Hampshire company, 5 Star North, had to reduce it’s 12-person staff to five—with three of those already seeking new employment. “Nobody in power seems to care about small business,” said 5 Star North owner Scott Anderson, who assembles various products from Chinese parts importers. “At this point the only option I see is selling out the rest of what we have and shutting our doors.” READ MORE: 'Under cover of night,' Republicans unveil plan to kick over 8 million off healthcare Small businesses don’t have the resources or margins to weather economic unpredictability as the president announces and rescinds tariff after tariff. Many only a single factory site, or they sell only to a handful a handful of suppliers. This would make switching production to countries not targeted Trump difficult even if the president did not pick and choose and update tariffs by the week. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the advocacy group Small Business Majority called on the Trump administration to provide an exclusion from the new tariffs for small-business importers, but WSJ reports Trump dismissed calls for relief. “They’re not going to need it,” Trump said. “They’re going to make so much money—if you build your product here.” That’s not the way Think Tank owners Lisa Popowich and Jonathan Stein saw it when they opened their manufacturing parts invoice from China earlier this month. READ MORE: 'Embarrassment:' Trump admin asks judge to hide it's tactics for mass layoffs “I wanted to throw up,” Popowich told WSJ, after seeing a bill showing tariffs as high as 161% per item, adding $8,752 to a $5,649 order. Other business owners like ASM Games co-founder Alfred Mai say he is paralyzed at the choice of either paying the tariffs to get inventory or risk running out of inventory. Read the full Wall Street Journal report here.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump's newest tariffs are slated to go into effect on various imported goods from multiple countries. But the big question that has yet to be answered is how other countries will respond — and how that response could impact Americans. During a Monday night interview with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Tom Vilsack, who was the secretary of agriculture under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, elaborated on how American farmers could be put in a particularly stressful position depending on how the United States' tariffs are received around the world. Vilsack theorized that if countries that purchase American agricultural products want to apply pressure to the Trump administration to reconsider its tariffs, they may consider importing food from elsewhere. And he cautioned that if they did so, it could cause permanent harm to the farming economy. "Agriculture is one of our principal export opportunities. [Trading partners] recognize the politics of agriculture in the United States. and obviously that puts farmers in the crosshairs," Vilsack said. "Once we lose a market, it's very difficult to get it back." READ MORE: Senate GOP's newest strategy now puts them in 'immediate conflict with the House': report Collins observed that Trump's new tariffs are more broad than those imposed during his first term in the White House. And she pointed out that Biden preserved some of Trump's tariffs on Chinese products, and allowed new markets to emerge. But when she asked Vilsack if he was optimistic that this new round of tariffs would produce similar results, he was skeptical. "It's pretty difficult when you're dealing with the quantity and quality of what we export," the former agriculture secretary said. "When 30% or so of soybeans are exported, it's pretty difficult if one of your major customers or several of your major customers decide to look elsewhere." Vilsack reminded viewers that during Trump's first-term tariffs, Brazil "invested in their infrastructure" and ramped up their soybean exporting capacity to allow the South American nation to serve as an alternative soybean producer to the United States. He further emphasized that if Trump aims to minimize damage to farmers, he should find a way to quickly bargain to bring down any tariffs other countries put in place before major alternative purchasing decisions are made. "That's why it's really important, i think, for whatever negotiation is going to take place to be relatively quickly, so that if there is retaliation, it's limited, so we don't lose market share," he said. "And so frankly, farmers don't necessarily need as much relief from the government as perhaps they may have to have, if it's a long-term type of situation." READ MORE: 'They could pull this stunt': George Conway says Trump's 'insane' 3rd term talk is serious Watch the full segment below, or by clicking this link.