U.S. small manufacturers hope to benefit from tariffs, but some worry about uncertainty

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Drew Greenblatt is fully on board with the Trump administration’s use of tariffs to rebalance a global trading system that it says favors foreign companies over U.S. manufacturers.

Greenblatt is the president and owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore, Maryland, which makes baskets and racks for medical device manufacturers, aerospace companies, food processing companies and others. It has 115 employees and makes its products in three locations in Maryland, Indiana and Michigan. The steel is sourced from Tennessee, Illinois and Michigan.

Currently, it’s hard to compete with baskets made overseas., Greenblatt says, because the countries he competes against have an “unfair advantage.” For example, due to European tariffs and taxes, it costs much more for a German consumer or company to buy Marlin wire baskets than it does for Americans to buy a German-made basket, creating an uneven playing field, Greenblatt said.

“It’s wildly unfair to the American worker,” he said. “And this has, by the way, been going on for decades.”

The Trump administration has called U.S. manufacturing an “economic and national security” priority. U.S. manufacturing has been declining for decades. In June 1979, the number of manufacturing workers peaked at 19.6 million. By January of 2025, employment was down 35% to 12.8 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Small manufacturers, which make up 99% of all American manufacturing, have been hit particularly hard.

The administration has implemented some tariffs against major U.S. trading partners, while putting a hold on other tariffs pending negotiations. The Trump administration says tariffs will force companies to have more products made in the U.S. to avoid steep price increases on their imports, which will mean “better-paying American jobs,” for people making cars, appliances and other goods.

Greenblatt agrees, saying he could double his staff if “parity” in tariffs becomes a reality.

While other small manufacturing businesses also support the tariffs, other owners have concerns. The Trump tariffs threaten to upend the existing economic order and possibly push the global economy into recession. And the uneven rollout of the policy has created uncertainty for businesses, financial markets and U.S. households.

For Corry Blanc, the injection of uncertainty around the economy outstrips any potential benefit.

He started his business, Blanc Creatives in Waynesboro, Virginia, in 2012. He makes handcrafted cookware such as skillets and other kitchenware and bakeware with American steel and wood and employs 12 staffers. He gets his steel from a plant in South Carolina and a distributor in Richmond. Wood comes from local regional sawmills near the company’s headquarters in Waynesboro, Virginia.

He said he’s been fielding worried calls from customers in Canada and overseas. And he says the infrastructure isn’t in place to increase production if more people do start buying American-made goods.

Blanc said he survived the pandemic and other tough times, but conditions now are the hardest they’ve ever been.

“There’s so much uncertainty and not a lot of direction,” he said.

Michael Lyons is the founder of Rogue Industries, a company that makes wallets and other leather goods in a workshop in Standish, Maine, with a staff of nine. He uses leather from Maine and the Midwest. About 80% of his products are made in Maine and 20% are imported.

He said the uncertainty around the tariffs is outweighing any potential long-term benefit. A long-time customer from Canada recently told Lyons that he would no longer be buying from Rogue Industries because of the friction between the two countries.

“Hopefully this will pass, and he’ll be able to come back,” he said. “But I did think that was kind of an interesting indicator for him to reach out.”

Lyons would like to expand his business, but says, “at the time being, it’s probably going to be, we hold with what we have.”

American Giant CEO Bayard Winthrop takes a more positive view. He founded his clothing company in 2011 after watching the textile industry go offshore, and seeing a lack of quality, affordable American-made clothing. He started by selling one sweatshirt, and now sells a wider range of clothing, mostly direct-to-consumer, but he also has a contract with Walmart.

He sources cotton from Southeastern states like Georgia, Florida and North Carolina and has a factory in North Carolina and a joint partnership facility in Los Angeles.

“People forget that in about 1985 that all the clothing that Americans bought was made in America,” he said. “It is only in the last 40 years that that we really pursued as a country a very aggressive approach to globalization.”

In 1991, more than half of U.S. apparel, about 56%, was made in the U.S., according to statistics from the American Apparel and Footwear Association. By 2023 that number had shrunk to less than 4%.

Winthrop hopes the tariffs will bring about a return to more American-made products.

“The imbalances between our trading, in particularly with China, particularly the textiles, it’s just shocking, to be honest with you,” he said, adding that he hopes Trump's policies "put domestic manufacturers on a bit more of a competitive footing.”

Winthrop understands people’s concerns but said it’s important to think longer term.

“Americans are worried about tariffs, and I think there’s a lot of justification for the worry because I think the administration can be volatile and unpredictable,” he said. But he added that people should put that aside.

“The idea that we’re going to be more protective of our domestic marketplace and have an industrial policy that includes manufacturing jobs is, an old idea. It’s not a new idea,” he said.

Name-plated steel pieces are seen at the Marlin Steel Wire manufacturing plant in Baltimore, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

A crane lifts a container at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

A crane lifts an imports container from the cargo ship Epaminondas while it is docked at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

A crane lifts a container from the cargo ship Epaminondas at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

A crane lifts a container from the cargo ship Epaminondas at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Containers are seen aboard the cargo ship Epaminondas while it is moored at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

A bird flies near the container ships Epaminondas and Talos while they are docked at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Container ships Epaminondas and Talos are docked at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Container ships Epaminondas and Talos are docked at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Container ships Epaminondas and Talos are docked at the Port of Baltimore, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Javid Moghaddasnia, Director of Customer Engagement, discusses American Giant clothing while being interviewed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Javid Moghaddasnia, Director of Customer Engagement, holds the sleeve to an American Giant hoodie while being interviewed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

American Giant hoodies are displayed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

An American Giant tag is shown on clothing at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

An American Giant logo tag is shown on pants at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

An American Giant logo tag is shown on pants at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

American Giant clothing is displayed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

An American Giant logo is shown on clothing at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Javid Moghaddasnia, Director of Customer Engagement, holds up an American Giant shirt while being interviewed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Javid Moghaddasnia, Director of Customer Engagement, discusses American Giant clothing while being interviewed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

BRUSSELS (AP) — A top European court ruled on Wednesday that the European Commission was wrong to refuse The New York Times access to text messages sent between President Ursula von der Leyen and a pharmaceutical boss during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The case highlights ongoing questions about transparency at the commission, which insists that text messages and other “ephemeral” electronic communications do not necessarily constitute documents of interest that should be saved or made public.

“Today’s decision is a victory for transparency and accountability in the European Union, and it sends a powerful message that ephemeral communications are not beyond the reach of public scrutiny,” said Nicole Taylor, a spokesperson for the New York Times.

The U.S. newspaper’s lawyers “succeeded in rebutting the presumption of non-existence and of non-possession of the requested documents,” according to a statement from the European Union’s General Court in Luxembourg.

The statement said that “the commission cannot merely state that it does not hold the requested documents but must provide credible explanations enabling the public and the court to understand why those documents cannot be found.”

It said that the commission had failed to explain “in a plausible manner” why the messages did not contain important information.

It also said that the commission “has not sufficiently clarified whether the requested text messages were deleted and, if so, whether the deletion was done deliberately or automatically or whether the President’s mobile phone had been replaced in the meantime.”

The commission said it would study the ruling and decide “on next steps,” which could refer to an appeal before the European Court of Justice, the EU's top court. It is unclear if the text messages in question still exist, and if so who has access to them. Von der Leyen herself was responsible for deciding whether the texts constituted documents of value.

“Transparency has always been of paramount importance for the Commission and President von der Leyen,” the commission said in a statement.

Transparency advocates argue that the EU’s increasingly powerful executive branch should maintain a paper trail of all its dealings and release documents when asked.

“This should serve as a catalyst for the Commission to finally change its restrictive attitude to freedom of information,” said Shari Hinds, a policy officer for Transparency International, an anti-corruption group.

The New York Times said text messages were exchanged between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla as COVID-19 ravaged communities from Portugal to Finland and the EU scrambled to buy billions of vaccines.

Von der Leyen was under intense scrutiny, especially after AstraZeneca stumbled to deliver vaccine doses to the 27-nation bloc.

Amid fierce international competition for access to the vaccines, von der Leyen was praised for her leading role during the pandemic. But she also faced sharp criticism for the opacity of the negotiations to quickly gather 2.7 billion euros ($2.95 billion) to place an order for more than a billion doses of vaccines.

At the same time as she was reported to be exchanging messages directly with the Pfizer boss, von der Leyen was publicly praising the company as “ a reliable partner.”

Von der Leyen was appointed to head the commission for a second five-year term last July. Critics say the 66-year-old former German defense minister dislikes having her decisions questioned, and that she centralized power at the commission’s headquarters, where she lives when in Brussels.

During her first term, von der Leyen led not only the EU’s pandemic response but also helped to rapidly wean the bloc off its dependency on Russian energy, after President Vladimir Putin used natural gas as a lever to undermine European support for Ukraine.

“It is simply untrue that the Commission President does not use text messages to conduct political business,” said Daniel Freund, a lead anti-corruption lawmaker and a German Green Party member of European Parliament. ”This ruling is a clear defeat for Ursula von der Leyen and a clear rejection of her practice of concealing or hiding her text messages.”

Païvi Leino-Sandberg, a law professor at the University of Helsinki who has a pending legal challenge before the same court about the Commission’s internal documentation rules, called the news “a huge victory for transparency.”

“The Commission lost so completely (in this ruling) and on every possible ground that overturning this in the ECJ seems extremely unlikely," she said.

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

FILE - A Belgian Army medic brings lunch to a patient with COVID-19 at the St. Michiel Hospital in Brussels, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, second left, speaks with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, center right, during an official visit to the Pfizer pharmaceutical company in Puurs, Belgium, Friday, April 23, 2021. (John Thys, Pool via AP, File)

FILE - Syringes with the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 disease are ready at a new vaccination center in Paris, Thursday, May 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

FILE - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen makes a statement during an official visit to the Pfizer pharmaceutical company in Puurs, Belgium, Friday, April 23, 2021. (John Thys, Pool via AP, File)