It was a bad week for Ben Coryell, who runs an orientation company in savagery in Golden, Colo.
He received several calls from clients who wanted to cancel their climbing courses and their mountaineering expeditions during the summer, often citing the second reflections on large purchases, because the Trump administration launched the economy in a turmoil with attractive prices.
At the same time, Mr. Coryell wonders how long his business, Golden mountain guidesCan continue to offer these trips, as staff cuts at the National Park Service have maintained the treatment of permits it needs to operate along the high demand routes. And with these cuts leaving fewer patrol rangers, it fears that operators without license can run.
So far, he has not dismissed anyone, but it seems more and more likely that it was necessary.
“It really starts to look like a large part of the operations on which we have depended could be hit during the next number of years until we can find a healthy status quo,” he said.
Thousands of entrepreneurs find themselves in similar positions while they confront the blizzard of Washington changes in the past two and a half months. Funding freezes, endowment cuts to federal agencies and the repression of immigration – as well as, of course, prices – throw a lot into the troubles, with little certainty about how to proceed.
“It is like a tornado for owners of small businesses,” said Natalie Madeira Cofield, director general of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, who supports initiatives to help companies with less than 10 employees. “It’s an unprecedented moment.”
Last years have been a whirlwind for this part of the private sector, which is essential to feed the American economy with new ideas and competitive vigor. The COVVI-19 pandemic inaugurated a boom in business training, and many of these start-ups continued to prosper In new niches, with modern practices.
Then, an increase in inflation, followed by an interest rate approach, extended many small businesses to their limit. Small businesses have an average of fewer employees than before the pandemic, according to the Homebase pay platform; Hiring decreased 1.6% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous year. And data from the QuickBooks accounting software company shows that all companies with less than 10 workers have started quickly narrowing in March 2024.
The economist who compiles these figures, Ufuk Akcigit from the University of Chicago, also found in a working paper Released last month, small businesses began to manage their credit card invoices in 2021, incurring heavy payments of interest. While interest rates increased in 2022, income has decreased and more companies have become delinquent.
“Small businesses have no internal capital to count on,” said Dr. Akcigit. “As a result, if there are financial difficulties, they are the first group to be excluded from the credit market.”
Nevertheless, optimism increased to record levels after the election of Donald J. Trump last year, according to a long -standing survey By the National Federation of Independent Companies, which represents small and medium -sized businesses.
Holly Wade, executive director of the organization’s research center, said that exuberance came from the expectations of its members in terms of favorable tax policy and relaxed regulations. Although this optimism reading disappeared in February, she said, the Congress and the White House are so far following their promises. Ms. Wade cited as an example Announcement of the Treasury Department that it would not apply a new law obliging entities to companies to disclose their true owners, with fines of non-compliance.
“These are very early victories of owners of small businesses on a question that has had an impact on most of them with the burden of the regulatory paperwork,” said Ms. Wade.
The administration accepted. “President Trump quickly cleans Biden’s disorder by taking a step back 10 regulations for each new regulations, by releasing American energy, by reducing taxes and leveling the rules of the game for American companies,” said Taylor Rogers, deputy press secretary of the White House.
But all the movements have not been welcomed as well.
The first blow was a freezing on subsidies and contracts – especially for companies belonging to veterans, who often do most of their business with the federal government. According to Nancy Langer, who runs a consulting company specializing in mergers and acquisitions for government entrepreneurs, some are already going bankrupt.
“I do not think they realized that it would have such an effect on companies belonging to veterans, but it did,” said Ms. Langer. “The entire community of small businesses on the federal market recognizes that this is a completely different paradigm.”
Now new opportunities also evaporate.
During his first day of mandate, Trump published a executive decree This has considerably reduced the share of federal purchasing dollars that go to small disadvantaged companies. (Biden administration had increased the target to 15%three times the statutory minimum, and has reached Purchase record levels with small businesses.)
The Rachel Klein production company, Fire Starter Studios, had been dependent on these contracts in recent years when the Los Angeles film industry has lost steam. As a small business belonging to women, Fire Starter had a slight competitive advantage during auction for short documentaries, public service announcements and promotional videos for federal customers.
But in the past few months, these requests have sank. A $ 200 million contract for the promotion of immigration implementation work in the Department of Internal Security Competitive auction and went to two creators of republican advertisements. Without improvement on the horizon, Ms. Klein made the decision difficult to sell the sound scene she built.
“It’s more than just”, do you make more money? “” Said Klein. “It’s the absolute stress monkey now hangs around my neck, hitting me on the head, going:” You have it! You don’t understand! You are mowing! You are not broke! “”
In addition to trying to raise small businesses through purchases, the federal government has helped them for loans, technical assistance and networking. Certain parts of this support ecosystem are now in danger.
Small Business Administration, for example, announced plans to reduce your workforce by 43%. While the agency had considerably expanded its number of heads in the past five years to administer rescue programs from the pandemic era, the abolition of many people – partly through voluntary buyouts – could erase the agency’s flagship loan program.
The Small Business Administration has also become more and more important in the distribution of funds after natural disasters. But the main agency responsible for relief is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Mr. Trump proposed to eliminate. This angry Janice Jucker, co -owner of Three Brothers Bakery in Houston, who needs federal help to recover from several major storms.
“For me, FEMA is to put my operational community so that they can shop in my shop,” said Ms. Jucker. It pushes the legislators of Texas to take over.
Some federal agencies have been targeted for quasi-elimination.
In mid-March, the White House published a executive decree Aiming to deactivate the fund for financial development financial institutions, a Treasury Department office which supports loans to people, businesses and disadvantaged places. The office and its funding have long had bipartite support, and the senators of the two parties have rallied to save it.
But Mark Pinsky, who has been working in the community development bank for decades and is now running a business This aims to lead to low interest funding in poorly served areas, considers the political environment as the will of the deflating banks to participate after years of regular growth.
“The changes are like a rolling ice cream,” said Pinsky. “It is not a tsunami. But it is difficult to overthrow management. ”
The White House has been more effective in everything except another entity named in this decree: the Minority business development agencythat the Biden administration had invigorated with new funding through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. He now fell to three staff members, with several dozen other on administrative leave.
The small office had acted mainly through its regional partners, who welcomed conferences and provided advice to small disadvantaged companies. Jesse Villarreal, who has SoldierA concierge company of 160 people in Mesa, Arizona, said that it had met customers, lenders and partners for joint ventures thanks to agency events.
“I am fortunate to be on the side because of their support,” said Villarreal. “Now the federal government is removing the program. We are very worried because we need people to help us. ”
The last obstacle for small businesses is the steep prices of the Trump administration imposed on imports of almost all countries.
Although small businesses are less likely to export than the largest, they depend on imports and tend to have less flexibility to change their suppliers. New sudden expenses can force them to reduce in other areas or even delay invoices.
Fort Hamilton, an rye and gin distillery in Brooklyn, is relatively lucky – he gets from New York State. But its glass bottles come from India, its labels elaborated with a printer specialized in Great Britain and its traffic jams in Mexico or Argentina. The change in one of these elements would require new molds and expensive conceptions, even if a domestic supplier could be found.
Instead, Alex Clark, a co -founder, decided to order as much as he could store in front of the prices – about four months of bottles and a year of labels. But spending this money meant that he could not add a seller to his 11 staff members, that he had planned.
“We believe that there are many opportunities for continuous growth, but it will take more bodies,” said Clark. “And it’s hard to put the body when you don’t know what the future looks like.”