Tariffs Bring Hope, Caution in Heartland

New levies seen as good for sales, bad for costs at Kansas hand-truck factory

- HANNAH MIAO

WICHITA, Kan.-Donald Trump's exact plans to raise tariffs remain a mystery, even to Phil Ruffin, a close friend and business partner of the president-elect.

Ruffin has Increased tariffs could boost business for Harper Trucks, a small hand-truck manufacturer owned for more than four decades, or end up raising costs of parts the factory imports from China. (A hand truck, sometimes called a dolly or a hand trolley, is a small, wheeled cart used to move heavy objects.)

Tariff policy could be critical for American manufacturers such as Harper, fighting to survive. Harper's sales volumes have fallen in recent years, which Ruffin blames on cheap hand-truck imports, largely from Vietnam. Tariffs stand to make Harper's madein-America products more attractive by making foreign goods more expensive through a tax paid by importers.

"That'll make us more competitive," Ruffin said of tariffs. "But will that get us any more business? I don't know, I'm not sure about that."

Trump on the campaign trail proposed a 10% to 20% tariff on all imports and a tariff increase on China to at least 60%. More recently, he threatened to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports.