For President Trump, tariffs are a way of protecting American industries and safeguarding national security. For Tracy Skupien, they are a calamity that has pitched her company into crisis.
Skupien is director of operations at Tompkins Products, a small family business in Detroit that takes imported cold drawn aluminium bar and turns it into transmission valves and other components for the US auto industry.
Last week’s move by Trump to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all imports of steel and aluminium will make Tompkins’ main input a lot more expensive — unless she can source everything she needs from her one US supplier, a big ask at such short notice.