Will County businesses struggle with ‘uncertainty’ of Trump tariffs impact on local economy

President Trump announced another round of tariffs on Thursday as local farmers, car dealers, builders and others try to figure out how the new administration’s trade policy will affect their business.

“I’d have to say, I’m surprised at how fast everything is happening,” Manhattan Township farmer John Kiefner said as he tries to sort out the potential impact on prices he will see for his corns and soybeans.

Joliet city’s mayor Terry D’Arcy, also a car dealer, said the Trump tariffs could increase prices on Fords and Chevys made in Mexico and Canada without touching the Hyundais that he sells because “the tariffs don’t include South Korea.”

That later changed with the Thursday announcement that reciprocal tariffs would be placed on all major trading partners, which includes South Korea, along with additional import taxes on cars and other products.

Even before the Thursday announcement, D’Arcy referred to new tariffs as part of the “shock and awe” of the Trump presidency and said they “could create chaos in the domestic auto industry.”

Kiefner, while describing himself as an advocate of free trade, said that the election of Trump was a vote for change and said the tariffs were part of that change.

“Sometimes you have to do things differently,” Kiefner said. “Time will tell if it’s good or bad.”

In the meantime, he is concerned that other nations will retaliate by putting their own tariffs on the grain that he and other local farmers grow.

“Corn and soybeans are probably going to be in the crosshairs,” he said.

Few local business people pretend to know how this all will turn out, but most appear keenly interested.

“The magic question is always, ‘Who absorbs the cost? Does that company absorb it and find other ways, or is that a straight pass to consumers?”

—  Mike Paone, executive vice president, Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce

Matt Marketti, president of PT Ferro Construction in Joliet, said it’s “too early to tell if anything is or will change in regards to pricing.”

“We need to wait and see as it is a fluid situation currently,” Marketti said.

Mike Paone, executive vice president of the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said chamber members in the steel and aluminum industries will be “keeping their eye on things.”

Paone said the automobile industry “relies pretty heavily on Mexican and China for parts.” And tariffs on produce will affect restaurants and grocery stores, too, he said. So the impact is far-reaching, he feels.

“The magic question is always, ‘Who absorbs the cost?’” Paone said. “Does that company absorb it and find other ways, or is that a straight pass to consumers? Obviously, it’s going to be felt somewhere.”

Mike Testa of family-owned Testa Steel Constructors, Inc. in Channahon said, “one word comes up in every conversation I have had about the tariff situation as it relates to steel prices.”

“And that word is uncertainty,” Testa said.

The Trump trade policy also is likely to have an impact on the Union Pacific intermodal yard in Joliet and BNSF intermodal yard in Elwood.

The intermodal yards comprise what is considered the largest inland port in the United States. Much of the cargo transferred from trains to trucks in Joliet and Elwood is shipped in from China, another target of the Trump tariffs.

Union Pacific when asked about what impact the tariffs could have on its business in Joliet provided what a spokesperson described as the company’s stock statement on the tariffs.

“Union Pacific has a 162-year history of adapting to serve our customers and being prepared for anything that could impact our business,” the statement said. “We will review any new policies and work with customers to provide solutions that keep freight moving.”

The intermodal yards are the center of a logistics industry that is the major generator of industrial development in the Joliet area, which comes mainly in the form of warehouses and truck yards.

Joliet, however, still calls itself the “City of Steel and Stone,” a throwback to the days when now-vanished steel mills were a core industry in the city.

David Kestel, another Manhattan Township farmer, pointed to the new warehouses as a reason he is OK with the Trump tariffs.

“I don’t think there’s very much American-made product in those warehouses,” Kestle said.

The Trump tariffs probably will lead to lower grain prices in the short term, Kestle said. But he is willing to live with that if it leads to fairer trade and support for American manufacturing.

“At the end of the day, it all boils down to fair trade,” Kestle said. “President Trump’s not going to let them walk all over us.”