Small Business Owners Say Things Are Great In Trump 2.0 — But They Want One Change

Small business owners are overwhelmingly satisfied with the Trump administration’s economic policies, with one exception: tariffs.

A new survey the Daily Wire obtained exclusively from Echelon Insights for Advancing American Freedom found that 88% of small business owners say conditions are going “very well” or “somewhat well,” and many expect that stability to continue. Another 45% said they expect conditions to improve over the next 12 months. 

Respondents credited the permanent extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts as a key driver of their success under Trump’s second term. The poll found that 60% of small business owners said maintaining those tax cuts would help their business “a lot” or “some,” including 17% who said “a lot.” By contrast, 58% said allowing the tax cuts to expire and raising taxes would have negatively impacted their operations.

Tax relief ranked as the top policy priority, with 28% of respondents naming it as the single most helpful action Washington could take.

Tariffs, however, emerged as a major concern. According to the survey, 42% of small business owners said tariffs have increased the cost of supplies, 36% reported raising prices for customers as a result, and 26% said they had to change suppliers. When asked to name the most helpful policy change, 19% specifically called for reducing or eliminating tariffs.

Democrats have repeatedly attacked President Donald Trump’s trade policies, arguing that tariffs function as a tax on American businesses and consumers. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “His tariff chaos is eating away at retailers, restaurants, small businesses, and it is still estimated that these tariffs will cost thousands of dollars for each family each year.” 

Trump has acknowledged his tariffs could bring “a little pain,” a sentiment reiterated by members of his administration. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the tariff implementation a “detox period.”

Vice President JD Vance framed the issue in broader economic terms.

“Incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us … is not a recipe for economic prosperity, it’s not a recipe for low prices, and it’s not a recipe for good jobs for the United States of America,” Vance said. “We cannot keep going down the globalist Joe Biden pathway where we have $2 trillion of peacetime debt and deficits.”

The Trump administration says tariffs are intended to incentivize companies to bring manufacturing back to the United States, where goods would no longer be subject to import duties. But small business owners say that transition is neither simple nor immediate. 

“We can’t just move factories overnight,” said Daniel Rogge, CEO of Tormach, an industrial manufacturing equipment company.

Others cited uncertainty as a primary obstacle. “The uncertainty is the most significant effect … People don’t want to make decisions with uncertainty,” said one wholesale trade business owner.