Name: Auto supplier to cut jobs, close warehouse, citing Trump tariffs
Uploaded: 2025-08-09T01:16:41.000Z
Duration: 9 min 28 s
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In just two days, President Trump sweeping tariffs on goods across the globe are officially set to take effect.

Their implementation has the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, telling the American people to relax that the quote tariff uncertainty period is behind us.

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But for a lot of business owners, the future is still very much uncertain as they navigate this new economic era, trying to figure out exactly what it means for their businesses, their employees, their livelihoods moving forward.

One Detroit auto supplier says he's going to have to lay off employees and close a warehouse because of the president's tariffs.

Joining us now is the CEO of Detroit Axel, Mike Mushanish.

Mike, thank you so much for being here with us this morning.

I believe your dad started it, you took over.

Walk people through the impact on your business right now.

I mean, I'd like to put it in context here.

Back then, if we were to receive a million dollars in products, we would pay $25,000 in tariffs.

And today, for that same million dollars in products, we're looking to pay $725,000 in tariffs to the federal government.

So what does that mean for you practically?

Practically, it's a, you try to source products from different countries.

So a drop of a dime, it's almost impossible to do.

So we went to India to procure products from there, trying to save our consumers money.

I mean, auto parts are the heavily tariffed commodity out there at 72.5%.

Also, we had an operation in Mexico, where we leveraged the de minimis exemption.

And that also, and a drop of a hat, gone.

So everywhere we turn, we're starting to see more and more roadblocks.

Are you worried about keeping your business?

I mean, our people that work for us are the ones who made the company.

I'd like to say that when we gave the notice to the state of Michigan, we started to draft it back in May.

We've seen that our industry as a whole has increased price dramatically.

We've seen the other competitors, perhaps, you know, smaller or medium-sized competitors have actually exited the market.

So as it stands now, we have picked up more customers than ever before because of the woes of others.

So now we don't plan to lay off anybody just because of the simple fact that there's been dozens and dozens of exit at the market already, prior to us even considering it.

So it's challenging times for many, many distributors and manufacturers, since we also produce product.

And that's also costing us more for the internal components to produce them.

I'm curious if you could speak to President Trump, what would you tell him?

I'm a supporter of the idea of reshoring our industry back to the U.S.

I mean, it gets to the point where there's absolutely nothing produced here in this country, which is very dangerous.

So setting the atmosphere and the environment conducive for entrepreneurs to be able to build and produce is important.

And having the federal government help initiate that is very important.

All that I see done was just you slam the tariff button.

And I mean, you know, once upon a time, three months ago, we were paying six, seven hundred thousand dollars in tariffs.

And now we're north of seven million dollars a month in tariffs.

So all that revenue that was once used for investments and machinery and employment is all gone.

So give us time, set the environment so we can produce these products here and we're ready to serve, Mr. President.

Look, oftentimes the president himself has said there's going to be short term pain, that they believe long term this will be better, that it really won't be that bad or that customers aren't going to have to pay for this.

Or even if they do, it won't be that bad.

It won't be that bad for small business owners.

But what you're describing sounds quite challenging.

The factories we procure from run on small margins.

The Trump administration, when they launched these tariffs, talked about two things.

One, manufacturing, bringing those jobs back.

They also talked about their concerns about immigration, for example, and having leverage over other countries in that conversation and jobs here at home.

Does the data give any indication on where they are making progress on those issues?

To separate them out a little bit, the decline of manufacturing jobs is part of a longer term trend and quite a normal one because the sector keeps getting more and more productive over time.

But manufacturing jobs have essentially flatlined for about a half a year going into Liberation Day.

And since then, they've actually resumed their slide.

So the explicit call for more manufacturing jobs as a basis, as a rationale for the tariffs, that simply hasn't worked out.

I think the sector has lost some 30,000 or 40,000 jobs roughly in the last four months.

In terms of immigration, this is interesting because it's worth noting that for all the attention that's been given to deportations and undocumented immigration, it's also the case that we're putting up barriers to legal immigration.

Preliminary, and everything is preliminary at this point, estimates are that net immigration levels are going to fall this year and possibly next year.

And that does have an effect on the economy.

It means that the labor force isn't going to be as big as it otherwise would have been.

And eventually, that also strains the capacity of the overall economy to grow as well.

So that is absolutely something that I think requires a little bit more attention and it's going to be worth following in the coming years.

All right, Cardiff, thank you so much for speaking with us.

President Trump says he will most likely have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping before the end of the year unless they fail to reach a trade agreement.

He says he's optimistic about making a deal with China, but that it's not imperative.

Meantime, Trump says he'll increase tariffs on India, quote, very substantially in the next 24 hours, a firmer timeline than he threatened previously.

Last week, Trump said he'd impose a minimum 25 per cent tariff on goods from India set to take effect by the end of this week.

Earlier on CNBC, he voiced his displeasure with India buying Russian oil.

We do very, very little business with India because their tariffs are so high.

So India has not been a good trading partner because they do a lot of business with us, but we don't do business with them.

So we settled on 25 per cent, but I think I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours because they're buying Russian oil, they're fuelling the war machine.

And if they're going to do that, then I'm not going to be happy.

Let's go to CNN Business and Politics correspondent Vanessa Ukavich.

So Trump there, of course, threatening secondary sanctions on India if it continues to buy Russian oil, but also saying that he's very close to a trade deal with China.

Yeah, and he says that if a trade deal is reached with China, then he will meet with the Chinese president later this year, but saying if there's no deal, that meeting is off the table, but certainly signalling that there has been progress.