NASHVILLE, Tenn.>> Drew Greenblatt is fully on board with the Trump administration’s use of tariffs to rebalance a global trading system that it says favors foreign companies over U.S. manufacturers.

Greenblatt is the president and owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore, which makes baskets and racks for medical device manufacturers, aerospace companies, food processing companies and others. It has 115 employees and makes its products in three locations in Maryland, Indiana and Michigan. The steel is sourced from Tennessee, Illinois and Michigan.

Currently, it’s hard to compete with baskets made overseas, Greenblatt says, because the countries he competes against have an “unfair advantage.” For example, because of European tariffs and taxes, it costs much more for a German consumer or company to buy Marlin wire baskets than it does for Americans to buy a German-made basket, creating an uneven playing field, Greenblatt said.

“It’s wildly unfair to the American worker,” he said. “And this has, by the way, been going on for decades.”

The Trump administration has called U.S. manufacturing an “economic and national security” priority. U.S. manufacturing has been declining for decades. In June 1979, the number of manufacturing workers peaked at 19.6 million. By January 2025, employment was down 35% to 12.8 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Small manufacturers, which make up 99% of all American manufacturing, have been hit particularly hard.

The administration has implemented some tariffs against major U.S. trading partners, while putting a hold on other tariffs pending negotiations. The Trump administration says tariffs will force companies to have more products made in the U.S. to avoid steep price increases on their imports, which will mean “better-paying American jobs,” for people making cars, appliances and other goods.

Greenblatt agrees, saying he could double his staff if “parity” in tariffs becomes a reality.

While other small manufacturing businesses also support the tariffs, other owners have concerns. The Trump tariffs threaten to upend the existing economic order and possibly push the global economy into recession. And the uneven rollout of the policy has created uncertainty for businesses, financial markets and U.S. households.

For Corry Blanc, the injection of uncertainty around the economy outstrips any potential benefit.

He started his business, Blanc Creatives in Waynesboro, Va., in 2012.

He makes handcrafted cookware such as skillets and other kitchenware and bakeware with American steel and wood and employs 12 workers.

He gets his steel from a plant in South Carolina and a distributor in Richmond. Wood comes from local regional sawmills near the company’s headquarters in Waynesboro, Va.

He said he’s been fielding worried calls from customers in Canada and overseas. And he says the infrastructure isn’t in place to increase production if more people do start buying American-made goods.

Blanc said he survived the pandemic and other tough times, but conditions now are the hardest they’ve ever been.

“There’s so much uncertainty and not a lot of direction,” he said.

Michael Lyons is the founder of Rogue Industries, a company that makes wallets and other leather goods in a workshop in Standish, Maine, with a staff of nine. He uses leather from Maine and the Midwest. About 80% of his products are made in Maine, and 20% are imported.

He said the uncertainty around the tariffs is outweighing any potential long-term benefit. A longtime customer from Canada recently told Lyons that he would no longer be buying from Rogue Industries because of the friction between the two countries.

“Hopefully this will pass, and he’ll be able to come back,” he said. “But I did think that was kind of an interesting indicator for him to reach out.”

Lyons would like to expand his business but says, “at the time being, it’s probably going to be, we hold with what we have.”