6 events in Passaic County with a date

Could Trump tariffs help these products made in NJ?

Little is truly made fully in U.S. or in New Jersey

By: Daniel Munoz
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Medical electronic devices made in Northvale. Political swag like hats for competing campaigns made in Newark. Print marketing materials made in Mahwah. A New Jersey-centric gift shop in Morristown. athletic outerwear in Clifton.
..... North Jersey alone has as many as 4,341 manufacturing companies across five counties, and hundreds of them boast the tile "Made in New Jersey."
..... But with President Donald Trump threatening to impose sweeping tariffs on the nation's trading partners - rattling markets and upending decades of global supply chains - many of them are nervous.
..... And even though Trump backpedaled a bit Wednesday [04/09/2025] and put a 90-day moratorium on the tariffs as he negotiates with other courtiers, a 125% tariff on goods from China remained in force.
..... Little is truly made fully in the U.S. or in New Jersey.
..... "there could be components manufactured overseas," said Mitch Cahn, president of Newark-based Unionwear, which makes the political swag and boasts that it has made political hates for the Trump, Obama, McCain and Harris campaigns. "There could be materials sourced from overseas."
..... that's true even if enough of the final product is assembled here for it to boast the title "Made in New Jersey," which is promoted by the New Jersey Manufacturing extension Program. NJMEP is a trade group and education network for the state's manufacturers and those looking to enter the industry.
..... Take for instance something small, like staples, Arrow Fastener, based in Saddle Brook, can produce 100,000 packs of staples a day.
..... Arrow imports the steel from China, then uses it to make the staples in Saddle Brook, said d Avid Donald, Arrow's vice president of operations.
..... Other North Jersey businesses, such as AlphaGraphics, the Mahwah producer of print marketing materials, rely on foreign-made equipment, said owner John Chrisostomou. If that equipment breaks down, they need to import replacement parts, and tariffs could drive up costs.
..... There's even a fear that producers of domestically made steel and aluminum could :feel they're emboldened to raise prices, said Eddie Russnow, president of Kearny-based Mac Products, which makes electrochemical distribution and transmission products.
..... ADM Troics Unlimited, a Northvale-based company that makes electronic medical devices, sources certain components like microprocessors and other chips from Taiwan and China, said its president, Andre DiMino.
..... the business is trying to source whatever components it can domestically, but some, including the chips and microprocessors, are simply not available in the U.S., DiMino said.
..... That ultimately means the cost, in some way, gets passed on to the consumer, because some aspect of production or the supply chain doesn't occur in the U.S.
..... Domino estimated price increases of anywhere from 3% to as high as 9%.
..... Even if the product is completely made in New Jersey, other aspects, such as the container, may be made internationally, said Paul Miller- Co-owner of Just Jersey in Morristown, which sells New Jersey-themed artwork, cards, home decor, candles and furniture.
..... "It will definitely trickle down," he said.

Can't 'flip a switch'

..... Trump has pushed tariffs to help create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. by boasting demand of lower-price American goods. But restoring manufacturing in the U.S. could take years, experts say, and it;s a risky gambit.
..... "Once you let something go, then to go bring it back on shore, that's not something you can flip a switch and be able to restart," said Parul Jain, who teaches economics and finance at Rutgers Business School in Newark.
..... Also, the uncertainly of whether the tariffs would remain under a new administration in 2029 might make business hesitant to transfer manufacturing to the U.S. and instead more likely to suffer through the tariff for several months or years, said Cahn, of Unionwear.
..... "These factories take a really long time to build," he said. "So they're not going to seen get these things off the ground most likely until close to the time when there could be another administration that eliminates the tariffs."

Does anyone stand to benefit?

..... Tariffs would shift more demand to products made by U.S. manufactures, but could they meet that surge in demand?
..... Martin DiBattista, owner of Better Team USA in Clifton, which makes luxury outerwear including U.S. Olympics jackets, is confident domestic producers are up to the challenge.
..... They did it during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Bett4er Team USA produced 100,000 medical gowns a month.
..... "If we can show that we can handle the capacity now - with a little bit of leveling the playing field with the tariffs, not so drastic but just enough to level the playing field - I think we can make good at it and invest, and bring back the industry, he said.
..... Vlad Spvak, managing parter at Modern Line Furniture in Hamilton, which sells furniture to commercial clients, said the tariffs would stem the flow of what he characterized as lower-quality, cheaper goods from China, thereby giving U.S. -made products the upper hand.
..... In the short term, business that product in the U.S., source most of their materials domestically and sell almost exclusively in the U.S. would benefit, said Cahn. that includes Unionwear, he said.

NJ drug companies

..... New Jersey has been dubbed the "medicine chest of the world" because of its abundance of pharmaceutical companies, from start-ups to established giants.
..... Jain, of Rutgers, said New Jersey's pharmaceutical companies could benefit from the tariffs, since India supplied nearly half of generic prescription filled in the U.S., according to an April 2024 report by the IQVIA Institute for human Data Science.
..... Trump previously floated the possibility of pharmaceutical tariffs in the "near future,: media reports said.
..... However, last week [04/09/2025] Trump issued a tariff exemption for pharmaceuticals, said a fact sheet put out by the White House, though it's not certain how long that could last.
..... If the active ingredients sued in medications have tariffs applied to them, then the prices of generic drugs would ultimately increase, said Jeff Stoll, a life science adviser at consulting giant KPMG.
..... "So the big question is ultimately where do the tariffs start or end," eh said.
..... Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson, a global drug-maker based in New Brunswick, announced plans in March [2025] to spend $55 billion over the next four years on domestic manufacturing, research and technology, including a $2 billion North Carolina logistics facility.
..... More complex companies such as Johnson & Johnson "have vast supply chains for their products, so I'm sure they and other pharmaceutical companies will be harmed," said Robert Scott, an economist at Monmouth University.
..... "How much is impossible to say at this point."

HOME