Small Connecticut manufacturers say that the Trump administration’s trade war is hurting their bottom line, but that the state has the resilience to adjust to changing tariff regimes.
The impact of tariffs headlined the Connecticut Business & Industry’s 2026 Manufacturing Summit at the Connecticut Convention Center Thursday, with small businesses particularly highlighting the intensifying trade war with Canada.
“We have a trade-driven economy here in Connecticut,” said CBIA CEO Chris DiPentima. “Exporting over $17.74 billion in goods last year — a record high — despite the uncertainty with trade policies and geopolitical conflicts.”
But he noted that despite an overall increase in exports, just four of the state’s 10 main export markets posted increases, with declines to Canada, the state’s top market, as well as Mexico and China.
While manufacturers said in the past they have been able to pass the cost of tariffs on to customers, the latest 50% tariff regime on Canada is more challenging.
Keith Simons, president of the products division at OEM Controls, a Shelton-based maker of industrial joystick controllers, says the company does significant trade north of the border.
“Their reciprocal tariffs are also affecting our price point. It’s a really tough one to navigate and almost impossible to just add that on,” he said.
Jeff White, a partner at Robinson+Cole who advises manufacturing companies, said beyond adding cost to products, tariffs represent other expenses when businesses are investing or buying new machinery.
“A lot of this machinery is not made in the United States. And so you’re paying a tariff on the way in too. The sticker shock on a $5 million, $6 million machine from Germany is crazy,” White said.
But the panel also highlighted the potential opportunity that an intensified trade war can represent for Connecticut.
”Ten years ago the plan was to outsource … to Canada,” Simmons said. “Today we’re doing more internal integration, more assembly in house. It’s better for us. We can control the cost.”
That was echoed by Bill Hazard, president of Novo Precision, a Bristol-based wire cutting service company, who said he is looking for ways to localize his supply chain, and says Connecticut’s longstanding manufacturing ecosystem makes that possible.
“We can leave our driveway and within two miles there’s probably 50 to 100 other manufacturing companies,” he said. “We have that infrastructure here with all these small companies, which gives us a huge competitive advantage.”
But White warned that in other ways the state is continuing to lose out on potential inward investment.
“A lot of international companies that I represent are basically waiting to see what the next trade policy will be in two years before they make further investments in the U.S,” he said.
