Attorney General Kris Mayes is calling on state lawmakers to provide financial relief to Arizona small business owners affected by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
She made the comments during a roundtable with the Better Business Bureau in Phoenix. During the event, she heard from a handful of Arizonans who say tariffs are hurting their businesses.
What business owners say
That includes Ken Nicholson of Ruiz and Nicholson Construction.
“Every time I turn around, my prices are going up,” Nicholson “And I tell my customers the price went up on these tariffs, they don't care. They said, ‘this is the price you gave me,’ so I'm eating money every job.”
Nicholson said he is losing around $110,000 on a single project he is currently working on.
He said is going to have to add a “tariff cushion” to address rising costs, which will make it more difficult for his customers to purchase a home.
“So the tariffs are making it harder for the smaller people,” he said. “Bigger people can absorb it a little bit. The smaller people can't, they push them out of the market.”
Nicholson said the fluctuating tariff landscape is making it difficult to predict prices, so he is trying to stockpile materials to avoid further cost shocks.
The tariffs are also impacting businesses that don’t rely directly on materials from other countries, said Lane Read, who owns Phoenix Commercial Cleaning.
Read said his business works with large industrial businesses that are directly impacted by tariffs.
“Then they try to find any way they can to cut their own expenses, which sometimes happens to be cleaning companies, so we are seeing that effect,” Read said.
Kara Holt, who specializes in helping Arizonans looking to move into 55+ communities, said tariffs are also impacting her customers.
She said one client on a fixed income needed to replace a gas furnace but that the cost for a replacement went from around $3,000 a few years ago to $5,200 or more now.
“And she doesn't have that kind of money,” Holt said. “And there is a weatherization program available for seniors, which there's a waiting list for right now, but she's basically using space heaters because that was her only option.”
As he made tariff announcements earlier this year, President Donald Trump defended the levies, arguing they will generate revenue for the U.S. while protecting domestic jobs and manufacturing. He has also started to roll back some tariffs recently to combat rising consumer prices.
But small business owners at the roundtable said they’re the ones hurting.
“These big corporations, they get tax incentives, right? Tax cuts, which is great for businesses,” Read said. “But we don't see that impact us right away, like we do at tariffs. And so the big businesses can handle and push off because they have billions at their disposal, but it does impact our businesses dramatically.”
State support
At the roundtable, many of the questions focused on what the state of Arizona can do to help struggling small businesses.
Joe Ducey with the Better Business Bureau, who moderated the event, said about 80 questions submitted by members focused on that issue.
“I know that there gets tax incentives and tax cuts. Is there a tariff incentive?” Read asked.
Mayes called that “a really interesting idea.”
She said business owners should contact their state lawmakers and ask them to pass financial relief for businesses affected by tariffs ahead of the next legislative session, which starts in January.
"Let's have these legislators put their money where their mouth is. They claim to be pro-business,” said Mayes, who is also signed onto a lawsuit challenging Trump’s power to unilaterally impose tariffs that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Beyond that, Mayes said officials should set up some sort of system to track businesses and consumers who are incurring higher costs due to the tariffs, saying that system will be necessary to reimburse them if the lawsuit succeeds.
