We Pay the Tariffs: Building a Small Business Network

At the start of 2025, many small businesses facing high, unpredictable tariffs had no single place to turn. Many industry-specific groups existed, but tariff impacts did not fit neatly into one sector. There was no cross-sector space where small businesses of all types could organize around the shared reality of paying tariffs. We Pay the Tariffs emerged to fill that gap.

The coalition did not begin as a formal advocacy campaign. It began organically, as small business owners reached out looking for help during an unusually chaotic period for trade policy. Businesses were struggling to understand rapidly changing tariff rules, absorb unexpected cost increases, and explain those impacts to customers and policymakers. 

As those conversations grew, so did the realization that these frustrations were widespread — and that small businesses needed a collective voice that cut across industries and regions. We Pay the Tariffs became that space: a grassroots coalition built not around a single sector or ideology, but around the shared goal of raising awareness about the devastating impacts of harmful tariff policies.

Over the course of 2025, WPTT grew into a national network representing more than 800 small businesses across 50 states, spanning a broad range of industries. This growth reflected the coalition’s origins: driven by small businesses themselves, shaped by real-world challenges, and grounded in the realities of operating during a period of unprecedented trade uncertainty.

By the end of the year, We Pay the Tariffs had become a cross-sector, grassroots coalition — created by small businesses, for small businesses — working to ensure their voices were heard in the tariff debate.