President Donald Trump’s tariffs pose an existential threat to many thousands of small businesses across America, including the one I’ve built for over 15 years. My father and I started YouCopia in 2009 to create organization products that help people reduce stress, spend less and save time at home.
Our first product was discovered by Bed Bath & Beyond. They told us we needed to move production to China from the U.S. to get a better price and larger capacity, so we did. We established strong partner relationships in China and continued to expand over the years by designing high-quality, innovative organizers.
Today, we sell more than 100 unique products to consumers through retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart. We employ 18 people in Chicagoland, but YouCopia supports even more than that. Our business relies on U.S.-based, third-party services, including attorneys, accountants, warehouses, freight logistics, software providers, photo and video production houses, printers, commercial real estate, office cleaners — and the list goes on.
Now the company we’ve poured our heart and soul into and the network of people it supports are threatened with a single stroke of the president’s pen. The current effective tariff rate of my business is over 150%. We paid $300,000 in tariffs in 2024; this year, our tariffs could amount to more than $7 million. It’s not even feasible that we could sustain our business at that rate.
And because of the disastrous and damaging way the administration has chosen to dole out these tariffs, we don’t have time to plan and execute a move. We’ve been talking to a factory in Vietnam as well as a few in the U.S., but the future tariff rates are too uncertain, and the cost is too high for us to make a move at this time.
If Congress, the courts or someone cannot reduce the tariffs soon, we’ll be forced to start laying off workers and closing down our business. It’s devastating.
My sadness at all of this is underscored by rage. Rage that it didn’t have to be this way. Rage that this is someone’s purposeful decision to put so many U.S. citizens’ livelihoods at risk. Rage that I may lose 15 years of my life’s work to Donald Trump.
I urge sharing my story, and the stories of the millions of others affected by these truly damaging tariffs, to bring about change that may help us rescue what is threatened to be lost.
— Lauren Greenwood, president, YouCopia
Who needs to speak up
In the April 24 Tribune, Kate Maehr of the Greater Chicago Food Depository and Julie Yurko of the Northern Illinois Food Bank wrote that food security, already precarious for many Americans, will dramatically worsen if Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps, are cut (“We need to strengthen — not cut — SNAP benefits”). The next day, Willie Wilson warned in his column of the harmful effects that cutting funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would have on the already-dismal states of education and public health in Chicago and America and that many of these harms are already happening (“Trump’s health care funding cuts will hurt everyday Americans”). Wilson urges us to protest and call or write to members of Congress to urge them to oppose these cuts.
I live in Lincoln Park, and contacting my legislators is bringing coals to Newcastle. The cold, hard facts are that for these cuts to bother anyone, what is needed is concern and compassion, or even basic human decency. That is a given for most people but by all appearances does not include the current administration and, by their public words and actions, the vast majority of Republicans in Congress.
These cuts are going to affect the poor and working class and spare the well-off. Ironically, the poorest states are generally solidly Republican. Recently, a Republican senator from Kansas spoke out against cuts to Medicaid.
What we do in Chicago (or New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Portland, Seattle, etc.) may do some good, but unless and until more Republicans from red states acquire the courage to oppose these cuts, the chance for saving these programs is pretty small.
— Elliot Weisenberg, Chicago
Ripple effects of cuts
As a retired public library director, I appreciated and cheered the front-page article about the usefulness of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the April 28 paper (“Libraries’ book sharing threatened by federal cuts”), but I wish that the Tribune had included the fact that IMLS makes up 0.0046% of the federal budget, not even a drop in the bucket.
I’m a member of The Woman’s Study Club of Joliet, established in 1895. We have many diverse opinions, but on the subject of the IMLS, we came together unanimously to strongly support federal funding through the IMLS. We believe that everyone is entitled to these services.
As the article states, IMLS ensures that museums and libraries (especially in underserved rural and urban areas) have the funding to provide free access to books, bookmobiles, computer labs, reading programs, digital databases and websites, e-books and technology training.
IMLS promotes lifelong learning through grants in early childhood literacy, workforce development and literacy programs for adults. IMLS helps promote local history through archives and digital projects. IMLS provides support to a community during crises, providing internet access and a safe gathering spot. A library is the center of the community — the hub where everyone can come. In short, IMLS helps create informed, connected and culturally rich communities, making it a smart investment for the federal government.
Cutting IMLS funding would save the federal government a miniscule amount, but the loss would be felt deeply throughout the country. For small and rural libraries, these grants are essential for their existence. The value generated by IMLS-funded programs far outweighs the small cost. IMLS services strengthen community life, reduce inequality and support job training. Cuts to IMLS would harm low-income and rural populations that rely on libraries for internet access, job resources and educational programming.
IMLS costs very little but has an enormous impact. Cutting this funding would sacrifice actual community benefits for basically no fiscal gain.
This funding should not be cut.
— Jo Ann Potenziani, Joliet
Tax dollars for libraries
Regarding “Libraries’ book sharing threatened by federal cuts”: The Tribune reports that President Donald Trump’s administration is cutting funds for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, cuts that could hit interlibrary loan programs throughout Illinois. The article quotes local and state library officials who decry the cuts and warn of dire consequences.
But it seems like there is a simple solution: If the federal government won’t use the money it gets from taxpayers to help fund this program, why can’t local libraries use money they get from taxpayers to jointly fund the program? Alternatively, if the program is so important to Illinois, maybe the state could use money it gets from taxpayers to fund the program.
We are, after all, talking about the taxpayers paying for the program. It’s just a matter of whether they are paying for it through their local taxes, their state taxes or their federal taxes.
It’s not like money from the federal government is free money that no taxpayer has to pay for. If government is spending it, we the taxpayers are ultimately going to pay for it.
In this case, it’s just a matter of whether the money goes to Washington first and then comes back to Illinois or whether it comes directly from the state or the local libraries themselves.
— Patrick J. Allen, River Forest
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