Murray, local business leaders meet to discuss tariffs

From the Port of Vancouver to Main Street, tariffs’ impacts are beginning to ripple through the community.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., met with local business leaders in Vancouver on Thursday as part of her effort to find out how tariffs are affecting the state.

The senator first met with representatives from United Grain Corp., the Port of Kalama, Workforce Southwest Washington, the local longshoremen’s union and Thompson Metal Fab.

All expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s tariffs, which are taxes paid by American companies buying foreign goods.

“We are very concerned about the inconsistency in trade policy,” said John Rudi, president and owner of Thompson Metal Fab, a metal infrastructure manufacturer based at the Columbia Business Center in Vancouver.

The Trump administration’s steel tariffs have raised prices on steel but also made it difficult for manufacturers like Thompson Metal Fab to bid on projects, not knowing if new tariffs will drive up costs further after a contract for a project has been signed.

“That makes it a real challenge for us to control pricing and also forecast our labor,” Rudi said.

Miriam Halliday, CEO of Workforce Southwest Washington, said her agency has seen an uptick in layoffs locally.

Jared Moultrie, vice president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 4, said the Port of Vancouver never fully recovered from the first Trump administration’s steel tariffs. And the union fears things will get worse. Moultrie projected declining steel imports and Subaru imports, fewer Chinese-manufactured ships stopping here, and evaporating aluminum imports.

‘A significant impact’

The possible lack of business worries the longshoremen who are already dealing with inflation and the rising cost of goods at home, Moultrie said.

Augusto Bassanini, president and CEO at Vancouver-based United Grain Corp., said his company worries most about retaliatory tariffs, like the 125 percent tariff recently put in place by China.

“China is the largest importer of soybeans in the world,” Bassanini said.

Soybeans are one of the largest exports leaving the Port of Vancouver.

“If this were to persist and escalate during the shipping season, which typically starts in October and finishes around January to February, that’s going to have a significant impact on our business and all the associated jobs that come with it,” he said.

The executive said his company exported about 20 vessels of soybeans to China last year, business worth about $500 million.

In the afternoon, Murray toured downtown Vancouver along with Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle.

The senator talked with the owners of Ronald Records, 1005 Main St., and Eryngium Papeterie, 1006 Main St., about how they will be impacted by tariffs. Both businesses expect to pay more as tariffs go into effect.

Ronald Records gets a lot of new records from Europe, while stationary store Eryngium Papeterie gets a lot of products from Canada.

“In about a year, overseas import tariffs are going to impact probably 70 percent of my business,” said Crystal Lary, owner of Eryngium Papeterie. “A lot of my wholesalers are getting some part of their product made over in China.”

Murray said Congress needs to reassert its power to make sure tariffs aren’t impacting states.

There’s already bipartisan legislation to limit the president’s authority on tariffs pending in Congress, but Murray said it doesn’t have enough Republican support.

Rudi said protecting strategic domestic industries is important, but not all industries need those kind of protections that might come from tariffs.

“It just has to be done in a predictable, consistent way,” he said.

Sarah Wolf: 360-735-4513; [email protected]