Every year on the second Sunday in May, Americans celebrate the mothers in their lives. Often with flowers.
According to the Department of Agriculture, 80% of all cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported, primarily from South America.
In the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day, America imports just over $250 million worth of cut flowers. But now those flowers are subject to 10% tariffs, creating a $25 million flower tax, much of it applied to Mother’s Day bouquets.
This tax will not only impact the consumer, but also the more than 11,000 retail florist shops across the country. Over the course of the next year, if these tariffs remain in place, they will impact Valentine’s Day, birthdays, funerals, and more, with a flower tax totaling over $210 million.
How Tariffs Are Impacting Small Business
What’s more: Flowers aren’t the only goods with tariffs hitting consumers this weekend.
Brittany Hizer, co-founder and COO of Pluie, Inc., located in Keller, Texas, says tariffs are impacting her ability to get the inventory that new parents need.
- “The 25% tariff imposed on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. will be a huge expense to our commercial products. In addition, we are also facing increased tariffs for our diaper changing table parts made in China. We transitioned most of our diaper changing table parts to other suppliers outside of China in 2022. Our consumer products recently launched in 2024 are made in China. We are very concerned and already seeing small businesses, especially in our female-founded business community, fold in advance of the tariff increases taking place."
If you were planning on buying your mom a sweater, that price is going up, too. A $50 sweater may now be $60, according to a report by Kiplinger. And if you were going to go all out and buy your mother a new $2,000 sofa, that now costs nearly $200 more.
The bigger picture: Businesses and local chambers of commerce are sounding the alarm that tariffs are creating strains for their daily operations, workers, and ability to plan for the future.
- “We are a manufacturing company who employs 55 people. With our current offshore strategy, we are able to provide those employees with great wages, benefits and most importantly, a work-life balance. We do not have the location space, equipment or people to be able to manufacture all our demand in-house. It would take a major overhaul to our business to even make this a possibility, which would include millions of investment dollars that we do not have.” — Michele Derrigo-Barnes, president and CEO, Plattco Corporation, Plattsburgh, New York
- "Many of the components impacted by these tariffs are not available from U.S. manufacturers, leaving us facing skyrocketing tariff costs, disrupted supply chains, and a shrinking ability to compete in our own market. Worse still, these policy shifts have occurred with little notice and no structured plan for transitioning to domestic production. As a company working toward onshoring our manufacturing in Kentucky, we are now watching that vision become financially impossible due to the very tariffs meant to encourage domestic industry." — Nathan Rowton, president, HVAC Distributing & MRCOOL, Hickory, Kentucky
