How do you run a business when a trade war is brewing? As President Trump's tariffs kick in - or are paused or are restarted - businesses around the world are trying to navigate the uncertainty.And, while trade is this big global thing, it is made up of individual farmers and business owners and truckers and manufacturers. Millions of people all over the world are being forced to reevaluate relationships that they've been building for years. Canadians have had a head start - Trump announced his plan to tariff Canadian goods on day one in office. So in today's episode: how one Canadian small business is trying to manage the chaos.This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglis and edited by Sally Helm. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Music: NPR Source Audio - "Mr. Chill," "Lazy Ranger," and "Guess What"Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the introduction to the trade war topic?
Heads up, in this episode, we are not able to consistently pronounce the word pecan. Sometimes it's pecan, sometimes it's pecan. Okay, you've been warned. This is Planet Money from NPR. So I guess, would you mind introducing yourself?
Chapter 2: Who is Alex and what business does she run?
My name is Alex, Alex Rodrigues, and I have a small business here in Vancouver, Canada called Nut Hut.
How do you not giggle when you say Nut Hut?
Oh, I don't. I had years of thinking, I should change the name. This is ridiculous. We have a physical location, and this is probably TMI, but we have a physical location with the big word Nut Hut. And there are instances of guys showing up in front of our building and posing in front of the sign and taking selfies.
Anyhow, Alex has been running her small business in Vancouver for almost a decade.
Nuthut is like a specialty shop. Alex sells just nuts, seeds, chocolate, and dried fruit, mostly from small, sustainably run farms. And finding those farmers is one of the main things she focuses on.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Alex face with her suppliers?
And that is not easy. Not everyone is reliable. She still hasn't found a pine nut that she really likes. So she doesn't sell pine nuts. So when she starts working with somebody good, she is very loyal.
And back in 2020, she makes an amazing find. She's looking on Etsy, trying to find a gift for her kid. And for whatever reason, probably because she runs a nut business, she comes across a page selling what are known as native pecans. And she's curious about them. So she reaches out to the seller and learns that these pecans are from a really special place.
The land that her pecans are growing on, like it's land that is designated that it can only ever be growing these pecans.
These native pecans grow near where Kansas meets Oklahoma meets Missouri meets Arkansas. And they're sold by a woman in Arkansas named Shirley Rallo. She says, That land is a great place to grow these nuts.
The river there is called the Neosho River, and the ground is just fertile, and it's just a perfect place for pecans to grow.
Shirley says the pecans grow by the river on these enormous trees. Some of the trees are over 150 years old. The nuts are essentially wild.
That's why they taste so good, because they're native pecans, and they have a much better taste. and flavor, and the oil content is better in them.
You cannot find these nuts in most grocery stores. Shirley says grocery store pecans are likely coming from Georgia.
You know, I don't do Georgia pecans. I never have. Because I grew up on natives.
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Chapter 4: How do tariffs affect Alex's business relationships?
Some of the farmers, they're the same people I've been working with from the beginning. And I've just kept building relationships with them, which is why the current situation right now of heading into tariffs, I find it really, like, it's concerning as one thing and potentially affecting my business, you know. These are all things that deeply concern me, but, like, I love our farmers.
And now Alex and Shirley's years-long business relationship has become kind of a tale of a star-crossed love, with tariffs coming between them.
Because, yes, the U.S. put tariffs on Canada, but then Canada put retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. So Alex in Canada, Shirley in the U.S., they are caught in the middle of a trade war. They've built up trust, which is a really valuable thing in business. But now it might become impossible for them to work together to import and export to each other.
Right, because trade is this big global thing, but it is made up of individual farmers and business owners and truckers and manufacturers. And as the tariff chaos spreads, millions of people all over the world are going to have to reevaluate relationships that they have been building for years. So what is a small business person to do?
At this point, I don't know. Who knows? We don't know.
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Amanda Aronchik. And I'm Sarah Gonzalez. First, President Trump announced tariffs. Then there were retaliatory tariffs and so-called reciprocal tariffs for countries around the world. But now those have been mostly paused. Just paused. This is still an escalating trade war. And Canada has had a little bit of a head start here.
They started figuring out how to deal with the tariffs a couple months ago.
Today on the show, we focus on one Canadian business – to hear all about the uncertainty and the difficult decisions that civilians have to make in a war they didn't ask for.
As U.S. trade with China exploded, American manufacturing shriveled, and workers struggled.
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Chapter 5: What strategies does Alex use to cope with trade uncertainties?
We asked the Department of Finance Canada whether that was what was going on. And Deputy Spokesperson Marie-France Fauché told us in a statement that there were a number of factors that they use when deciding which goods to tariff, including, quote, maximizing pressure on the U.S. administration.
Now, Alex, she imports from both red states and blue states. She gets her pistachios and walnuts from blue California and her pecans from red Arkansas. Those are the three nuts she gets in the U.S. So she calls up Ray, her customs broker, and she says, are any of my nuts on that list?
And he looks it up. So right now there is only one of them that have tariffs on it, and that is pecans.
Oh, the pecans. Pistachios and walnuts were not on the list, but Canada did put retaliatory tariffs on U.S. pecans, and they were going to kick in at the beginning of March. So Ray had a piece of advice for Alex.
If I was in Alex's place, I'd be rushing as much as I can.
So Alex started doing just that kind of panic purchasing from the U.S.? Yeah, I would call it panic purchasing or wise. It was wise. It was precautionary. Because the tariffs at that point were paused, but they were coming. So over the course of February, she tries to stockpile as many American nuts as she can. Each nut requires a slightly different plan.
We talked to her while she was in the middle of all of this.
Ashley, my husband is right now at the bank. We're like dipping into our own personal funds to come up with enough money because I've purchased three extra pallets from my walnut farmer. Because even though right now there's no tariff on walnuts, I don't know how this is going to go.
Yeah, like maybe walnuts would be hit with tariffs in April or May or never. Unclear. So first, walnuts. She could source them from somewhere else, maybe Eastern Europe. But of course, she already knows and trusts her walnut farmer. So she buys a bunch of walnuts from her regular farmer, gets them shipped over the border, and puts them in cold storage. I defer to what our farmers say.
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Chapter 6: Who is Raymond and how does he help Alex?
Yeah, really. Regular Canadians decided to retaliate against Trump's policies, too. But in effect, that meant that they had to fight against Alex, a Canadian, and her business decisions. It's a weird position for Canadians to be put in. And we wanted to hear their side of the story, how they are making these decisions about how to fight in the trade war.
So I headed up to Vancouver. And when I got there, I started to see evidence of the trade war everywhere. Some stores had signs out front that read Canadian owned and operated. In the supermarket, there are these little labels under the cookies or cereal that say product of Canada.
And when I went into a liquor store, all of the American liquor was covered up with black blankets because British Columbia had stopped the retail sale of American alcohol. Ouch.
But obviously, we were most interested to see what was happening at Alex's nut hut. Were people boycotting American nuts, too?
Now, when I got there, things seemed calm. I went in to meet Alex in person.
I'm all right. How are you?
Nut hut isn't a typical store. It's more like a little production facility. OK, so would you give me a tour?
I have to give you a tour. There you go, that is our shop.
It was a short tour.
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Chapter 7: What advice does Alex receive regarding her nut inventory?
I mean, I try not to, but of course you have to once in a while. Right.
This was the sense I got from my time at Nut Hut. These trade-offs get so complicated that in the end, some people just buy the American nuts. Sam was not alone.
Right, because many of Nuthut's customers were already trying to use their Canadian dollars to buy local or buy organic or protect the environment. Now adding buy Canadian only to their list is one more criteria in an already oblique world of international trade. Like, it's hard to choose which issue matters most.
And that's why for Alex at Nuthut... Her business hasn't actually taken that big a hit. I think yesterday I was looking at her numbers.
I'm like, oh, they seem to be just fully recovered again. She did lose some customers who definitely do not want American nuts. But she actually gained new customers, too, who are also trying to boycott the U.S. because her almonds are not from California. They are from Australia. And her hazelnuts are from Canada. Great for Buy Canadian.
For now, things seem to be balancing themselves out, although the trade war has really just begun. So Alex and her customs broker Ray, and surely with the pecans, they are all just starting to figure out their strategy. In a war they did not start. If you're new to Planet Money, welcome. We are very glad to have you here.
We have a lot more stories to help you make sense of this confusing economic moment in your feed twice a week.
Today's episode was produced by Sylvie Douglas and edited by Sally Helm. It was engineered by Sina Lofredo and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. And I'm Amanda Aranchik. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
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