Rushing orders, hiking prices, cutting budgets and starting layoffs: these are some of the measures that business owners across Los Angeles have resorted to as they grapple with the impact of sweeping new tariffs enacted by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Minal Mondkar is one person feeling the pain. The founder and chief executive of Aura Seating, a furniture maker based in Torrance, has seen her import costs explode this year.

The company faced a 25% tariff last year, which crept up to 35% and then 45% this spring as Washington continuously hiked duties, according to Mondkar. As of press time, it’s bracing for tariffs as high as 145%.

Aura assembles its products, which include ergonomic chairs and standing desks, in the United States. But it sources some of its components – aluminum frames for chairs, wood bases for seats and metal mechanisms that allow users to adjust the height of their chairs – from Asia, including China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Taiwan and South Korea are among the dozens of territories on which the Trump administration has slapped tariffs in recent weeks, before declaring a 90-day pause for all nations except the world’s second largest economy.

China, meanwhile, continued to face tariffs of 145% as of press time. The country announced 125% counter tariffs this month on U.S. imports, saying that “if the U.S. continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the U.S., China will ignore it.”

The dispute has crippled Aura, which is hugely reliant on suppliers from China and sells to other businesses such as hotels and casinos, as it works to determine how to absorb climbing costs.

“We’ll have to take more hits, so we will not make any profit (on) this. Just to survive, I’ll have to eat up some of the cost and then pass some of it to my customers,” said Mondkar.

As for passing on the cost entirely? Unthinkable. 

“If I tell them, ‘Hey, you know what you’re going to pay – I’m doubling that.’ There’s no way (they’ll still buy),” she said.

Aura has already seen a loss in potential business. Several purchase orders that were set to be confirmed in March and worth a total of $3.8 million were called off, said Mondkar.

When news dropped of higher tariffs, “customers got spooked,” she said. “They saw the immediate fear of recession and put all of these projects on hold.  I could taste that $3.8 million, but that’s about it. I can’t do anything about it.”

Mondkar looked into sourcing components domestically, but it wasn’t cost-effective enough, “even with the tariffs,” she added.

Tightening their belts

In response to the growing headaches, Aura has been forced to trim expenses, including its headcount.

“We have already let go some of the personnel, unfortunately, and these are people who have been like a family to me,” said Mondkar, her voice wavering.

She won’t be alone. The tariffs risk raising unemployment more broadly, with one in nine jobs in Southern California connected to the more than $400 billion in trade flowing through the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

L.A.’s trade and logistics sector, which directly employs about 902,000 workers, is particularly at risk. At a recent press briefing, Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka acknowledged that tariffs would “affect port-related jobs, because as we know, fewer containers mean fewer jobs here at the port.”

Even before the latest tariff announcements, unemployment in L.A. County was projected to rise from 5.7% to 6.1% from 2024 to 2025, in part due to existing duties, according to LAEDC President and Chief Executive Stephen Cheung.

The rate could shoot up higher should the current level of tariffs remain in place, he added, noting that he was beginning to see signs of pressure within nonprofits.

Alexander Voets, general manager for RIZON USA, says his company has also made cutbacks, including sharply reducing its marketing budget and scaling back on expansion plans throughout the country.

“We’re not going to as many trade shows. We’re not planning on a rollout into every single state in 2025,” he said.

RIZON USA is a Whittier-based company that serves as the U.S. distributor for commercial electric trucks made by Daimler. The distributor imports its vehicles from Japan and caters to clients such as PepsiCo and Ryder.

RIZON expects to be affected by new tariffs, but is working to determine at what specific level, according to Voets.

Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported light trucks and passenger vehicles in March, though he later suggested he may also pause duties on the auto industry to give firms time to adjust their supply chains.

Japan has also been hit with a 24% tariff, though this has been paused for 90 days. A 10% blanket rate remained in place as of press time.

As of Thursday, RIZON was facing a 50% tariff, up from 25%, according to Voets. He said the company made cutbacks before the latest duties were introduced, in response to both the anticipation of higher import costs and a regulatory change that hurt its business.

It’s “a double whammy,” added Voets, who described more hesitation from potential clients to place orders and estimated that there were 30% to 40% fewer attendees at local electric vehicle events, where the firm typically develops sales leads.

“We have more customers that push back on the buying decision,” he said.

Scrambling for product

To evade the upcoming tariffs, some businesses have moved up their factory orders.

In March, the Port of L.A. processed imports of more than 385,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a metric used for cargo shipping containers.

That was 1.6% higher than the nearly 380,000 TEUs handled the same month a year earlier, continuing a similar slight uptick seen in February.

The trend reflects how “many retailers and manufacturers have been importing their products through Los Angeles earlier than usual as a hedge against tariffs,” Seroka has noted.

By bringing goods in early, brands have shifted from a “just-in-time” strategy, which refers to timing orders closely to match supply with demand more easily, to a “just-in-case” approach, which refers to keeping more stock on hand to combat future cost rises, according to Cheung.

But that, too, comes with its own costs. Cheung said some business owners had reported paying a premium to store extra inventory at warehouses, which in turn raised expenses.

So “even when you’re trying to beat the tariffs, you might have additional costs that you need to consider as well,” he added.

Lonnie Kane, owner of apparel company Karen Kane Inc. and former chair of the California Fashion Association, was among those who joined the rush. Kane’s family-owned business is based in Vernon and makes its apparel both domestically and abroad, including in China, Vietnam, India and Turkey.

“We called our (shipping) broker when this first happened, like everybody else did. I mean, the poor brokers got slammed,” he said. “Honestly, everybody’s doing the same thing. You do what you can do.”

By doing so, the womenswear brand was able to bring in an assortment of inventory planned for shipment later in the year, including dresses, tops and sweaters.

However, it was nothing short of “total chaos and confusion,” said Kane. “Not just a little, not slight. We’re under extreme pressure, and just haven’t exactly figured out what to do about it.”
The firm is currently preparing for the all-important holiday quarter at the end of year, but with the dizzying changes on tariffs, has struggled to update its cost sheets, according to Kane.
“By far, the biggest issue is the complete confusion on what’s going on and that manufacturers just do not know how to cost their garment at what price,” he said, noting that the tariffs were placed on top of longstanding industry duties based on which type of material used in each garment.

“We don’t even know really what the tariff rate is (on each product),” Kane added, citing the rapid changes in policy. “We can’t tell a retailer, ‘Here’s what I’m offering, but I don’t know the price’ … We have to give them a price.”

Ilse Metchek, an independent industry analyst who previously served as the longtime president of the California Fashion Association, echoed that view.

“This current kerfuffle that we’re in is nobody knows what the landed cost is going to be,” she said.

Voets, the electric vehicle executive, has also taken to monitoring the news relentlessly.

“Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is read the news for about 30 minutes. And the reason is I have to do it is because every morning, things might have completely changed to where my entire day will be dictated by this piece of news,” he said.

The whiplash has led to a constant stream of scenario planning for Mondkar, the furniture seller. Giving a customer a quote now results in “four or five” line items, she noted.

“(We say,) ‘If the tariff comes to this, this is going to be your price. If the tariff comes to this, this is going to be your price,’” she said. “Nobody knows what’s going on. The uncertainty is driving everybody crazy.”

A trade slowdown

While the pause on most new tariffs is “somewhat encouraging, a pause is not a stop,” Seroka told reporters at an April news conference.

“We can expect a slowdown in global trade as businesses try to understand the implications of a very uncertain market,” he added. “Many companies are telling me they’ll delay hiring and capital investments for the time being.”

As a result, the port expects a drop in cargo volume of at least 10% in the second half of the year compared to that of 2024. Seroka predicts a potential “drop-off in volume starting as early as the month of May.”

It is difficult to understate the impact of tariffs on China alone, with Chinese goods representing about 40% of the imports that pass through the Port of L.A., according to Seroka.

“This will more than likely increase costs for anything we buy from China by two and a half times,” he said. “The ripple effect of these tariffs will be felt by all of us, and there’s no way around it.”