In 2024, California-based High Camp Flasks was a small business with a “ton of momentum,” its co-founder Nicholas Barisone said. The brand’s fancy drinkware was growing in popularity, allowing the company to bring on additional employees and plan new products.
That all changed in the last few months amid President Trump’s trade war, which has already stretched on far longer — and with higher taxes for U.S. brands — than small business owners like Barisone expected. Trump’s tariffs on goods from China and other countries have fluctuated wildly since he took office, leaving business owners confused and consumers wary, according to multiple interviews conducted by GearJunkie in recent weeks.
In late May, Trump announced that steel and aluminum tariffs would reach 50%. That has big impacts for the stainless steel flasks that High Camp Flasks makes by working with Chinese factories. Even without that additional cost, Trump’s across-the-board tariffs against China reached 145% in May before the president announced a 90-day pause for negotiations.
In this uncertain political environment, High Camp Flasks’ business model becomes untenable, Barisone told GearJunkie. “We reached out to a U.S. manufacturer to get a quote on making our simplest flask product: It would have a $525 cost,” Barisone said. “And with only single-walled insulated available, it would be a crappy version of our existing product … This situation is really scary.”
Now, High Camp Flasks is following the playbook of many other outdoor brands. That means slashing financial forecasts, pausing hiring, postponing new product releases, and divesting from the U.S. consumer market to seek out other markets instead.
Business Leaders Speak Up
In recent years, Steamboat Springs, Colo., has become a hotbed of innovation for outdoor companies. The northern Colorado town’s high concentration of brands made it an ideal location for last week’s hearing for the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Senator John Hickenlooper heard from the leaders of three major local brands in the meeting: Travis Campbell, owner and CEO of adventure travel gear company Eagle Creek; Mike Mojica, founder of Englewood, Colorado’s Outdoor Element; and Trent Bush, founder and co-CEO of Boulder-based apparel brand ARTILECT Studio.
All three business leaders painted a grim picture of their brands’ future without changes to Trump’s trade war. Eagle Creek has been forced to freeze salary increases, halt the hiring of “two exceptional new people,” and cut spending across the board.
“In our 50th year of operations, we could be possibly put out of business through these ill-conceived tariff plans,” Campbell said in the meeting. “It feels like our country is systematically working against small businesses like ours.”
Outdoor Element had “just came off our best year ever,” Mojica said. Then the tariffs happened.
“Overnight, tariffs on our core products jumped to 145% … What I thought was an approachable path to the American dream has suddenly turned into quicksand,” Mojica told GearJunkie. “We had to pause production — tell factories to hold the goods and not ship them … I’ve lost a wholesale account, I had to lay off team members, I’ve asked others to work less hours.”
Sen. Hickenlooper, a Democrat who represents Colorado, has been a vocal critic of Trump’s tariffs and their impact on small businesses: “We’re sustaining losses here that are needless, and they’re going to be long lasting, and they affect every aspect of our country,” he said of the meeting.
‘Hope for a Better Future’
On April 9, Trump announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs against countries around the world. China was initially excluded from the pause until May 12, when U.S. and Chinese officials agreed to temporarily reduce the tariffs for further negotiations. At the moment, Trump’s tariff increases are set to return in early July.
The pause has forced many business leaders into a veritable panic mode, as they attempt to order as much inventory as possible before the tariffs return. That’s even true for brands that mostly avoid manufacturing in China.
Just look at The Landmark Project, a small business founded in 2015 that has grown rapidly in recent years. Its vintage, wildlife-centered designs became a big hit when REI started selling the brand’s gear in 2016, allowing the company to expand to about 40 employees.
Most of the company’s shirts and other accessories are made at a factory in Guatemala, where tariff increases from Trump have (so far) been low enough for the brand to absorb.
But The Landmark Project also sells a small handful of products that can only be made in China, like its extremely popular Smokey Bear mug. A campy, cheap gift, it’s one of the brand’s bestsellers. Most enamel products are made in China, so Matt Moreau, co-founder and creative director of the company, said he’s working with his supplier to ship enough mugs during the tariff pause to last the rest of the year.
“We have to have that product during the holidays,” Moreau said. “There’s so much traffic for that page that it would be better for us to break even than be without that one.”
Even for products made at the Guatemala factory, Moreau worries about the impact from tariffs. The same factory also makes shirts for Disney. So if the Disney Corporation decides to ramp up production in Guatemala to avoid tariffs on China, Moreau said The Landmark Project “might get pushed into a corner.”
“I’m not hearing of brands moving manufacturing to the U.S.,” Moreau said. “Most of what I’m hearing is: Take the hit, wait it out, and hope for a better future.”
Strategies to Reduce Costs
As the tariff uncertainty drags on, more companies are seeking advice from people like Brendan Heegan, the CEO of order fulfillment company Boxzooka.
The company mostly works with medium-sized brands with annual revenues of $5 million to $50 million. Many of those clients are “being forced to pivot,” Heegan said, and looking at new countries for manufacturing.
But there are other ways that brands can mitigate the costs of Trump’s tariffs, he said. Many companies can save major bucks simply by improving the planning of their shipments, choosing ocean transit over air, and opting for less expensive packaging. Another option could be ditching major shipping carriers like FedEx, and opting for smaller, regional providers that come at a lower cost, like DoorDash Package Pickup or Uber Courier.
“Most folks out there are wasting money somewhere in the supply chain,” Heegan said. “You can compensate for the increased tariff cost by being a little more creative.”
Those strategies won’t work for every brand, however. Barisone said that High Camp Flasks can’t really change its packaging, given that it’s designed to protect the flasks from damage during shipping. It’s also important that the packaging meets modern consumer expectations, he added.
“When someone spends $125 on drinkware, you need to wow them,” he said.
No Signs of U.S. Manufacturing Boom
Trump hopes that levying higher taxes on goods made overseas will force American companies to move their manufacturing back to the U.S. Heegan pointed to the huge garment manufacturing industries that once existed in New York and Los Angeles, but have mostly been offshored to countries like China.
“I have to imagine that it’s possible for some brands to bring it back,” Heegan said.
However, he also hasn’t heard of any clients actually considering ways to start making their products in the U.S. Neither has Matt Moreau of The Landmark Project, nor Nick Barisone of High Camp Flasks. It might be possible, Moreau said, but only if brands knew how long the tariffs were going to last, and what the exact cost increases will look like.
But the President has not revealed what his long-term plans might be. Since changing a brand’s entire supply chain can take at least a year, most brands have decided to sit tight and see what happens. For companies like High Camp Flasks, the only other option is trying to expand outside the U.S. market to consumers in Canada, Europe, and Asia, Barisone said.
“People aren’t looking at flasks for the next picnic. They’re looking at the headlines. I’m doing it, too,” Barisone said. “What’s going to be next, and how are we bracing for it? It’s this doom cycle that keeps going.”
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