At the heart of Fall River, Massachusetts, the hum of sewing machines and the scent of fresh-cut leather signal another busy day at Vanson Leathers. Under the shadow of an American flag, the company’s workers cut, stitch, and perfect leather jackets that have graced everything from motorcycle rallies to the Super Bowl halftime show. But behind the scenes, a storm is brewing—one that’s left not just Vanson, but manufacturers across the region, grappling with a dizzying wave of trade uncertainty.
According to The Boston Globe, the challenges stem from a series of escalating tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, designed to encourage more goods to be made in the United States. For businesses like Vanson Leathers, which sources leather domestically but relies on imported textiles from India and China and zippers from a Japanese firm with a Georgia plant, the impact has been swift and severe. “We say, ‘Made in America of domestic and imported materials,’” said Mike van der Sleesen, Vanson’s cofounder and president. But these days, that label comes with a hefty price.
“Everything that comes from overseas is in turmoil. The whole supply chain is in flux,” van der Sleesen told The Boston Globe. The company, which also exports to countries like Korea, Australia, and Germany, has been absorbing the increased costs for now. Raising prices, van der Sleesen fears, could drive away customers already wary of high-end price tags. Instead, he’s betting on innovation—investing in technology to speed up production and create new, unique designs that might justify premium prices. “There is a ceiling for what people are willing to pay,” he noted, underscoring the delicate balance manufacturers must strike.
The uncertainty gripping Vanson isn’t unique. Just a few miles away, Klear Vu, a 60-year-old manufacturer of cushions and decorative pillows, faces its own set of challenges. The company imports most of its upholstery fabric from China, and the abrupt imposition of a 125 percent tariff on Chinese imports in April 2025 left the business reeling. “If you are sailing down a river and you see a rock in the distance, you can tack, you can change course, you can adjust sails. But if someone drops a giant boulder right in front of you, you might hit it, wreck your boat, and take on water,” said Sam Cooper, Klear Vu’s senior vice president and co-owner. The analogy captures the suddenness and severity of the tariff shock.
Planning has become a gamble, Cooper explained, especially as the cost of fabric can fluctuate dramatically between the time it leaves a foreign port and arrives in the United States. “It takes several months for a product to come from overseas and rates are changing as they’re on the water,” he told The Boston Globe. The unpredictability has left companies hesitant to hire, expand, or even replace departing employees. “You do see inflation on a lot of consumer goods, it’s still going up ... if it’s between buying food or a chair cushion, what happens, you know,” Cooper mused, highlighting the real-world consequences of trade policy on everyday Americans.
George Matouk Jr., CEO of luxury-linen maker John Matouk & Co., echoed similar frustrations. His company now pays a 50 percent tariff on fabric imported from India, after the U.S. imposed additional levies in response to India’s purchase of Russian oil. “We buy fabric of certain constructions in certain dimensions, in certain quantities and colors that are not available in the United States,” Matouk said. The tariffs, he added, are “basically taxes on our business, which we pay directly to the US government. And they interfere with our ability to compete as a manufacturer in the US market.”
The abruptness of the tariffs has compounded the challenge, Matouk explained. “It’s not a simple thing to just take a proprietary product that was developed in conjunction with a certain supplier who also is working with other suppliers of materials and then relocate it to a different country. It takes years to do something like that effectively.” The import taxes, he lamented, could have been used to hire more staff or expand operations. “What we need as manufacturers is a fair, consistent, and rational policy,” Matouk argued. “If we need to have tariffs to raise revenue for the US government, that’s understandable, but the tariffs should be implemented in an even-handed and logical way across the world.”
This sense of paralysis—where companies are reluctant to hire, grow, or make major purchases—has become widespread, according to Brooke Thomson, chief executive of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. “It’s sort of this paralysis. It’s a wait-and-see,” Thomson told The Boston Globe. The wild swings in tariff policy have “impacted their ability, not just to purchase what they need from their suppliers, many of [whom] are overseas, but it has also impacted their ability to sell products in the marketplace.”
Meanwhile, the uncertainty is not limited to Massachusetts. Across the globe, U.S. tariff policy is upending trade relationships and roiling markets. Between October 6 and 9, 2025, a high-level Cambodian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol and Minister of Commerce Cham Nimul met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade. The talks focused on facilitating smoother market access, encouraging investment, and ensuring mutual benefits for businesses and consumers in both countries, according to the Royal Government Spokesperson Unit.
These negotiations followed Cambodia’s successful reduction of its reciprocal tariff rate from 49 percent to 19 percent on July 31, 2025, after several rounds of talks. Cambodia now seeks further U.S. tariff reductions on seven key products, with the government forming a working group to push for more reforms and institutional support for exporters. Casey Barnett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, expressed optimism that Cambodia could secure additional tariff reductions, particularly if regional dynamics—such as U.S. pressure on Thailand to sign a peace agreement—shift in Cambodia’s favor.
“The Cambodian team, led by Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol, is planning to negotiate and is currently asking the US to reduce reciprocal tariffs on seven products,” Barnett told reporters, as cited by Khmer Times. He also pointed to ongoing legal challenges to President Trump’s tariffs in the United States. “There is a lawsuit claiming that President Trump’s tariffs are not in accordance with US law, and the district court ruled that these tariffs are illegal. The US Court of Appeals has agreed with the district court’s decision, so the case is now heading to the Supreme Court, which will decide between December this year and June next year.”
Economist Darin Duch described the U.S.-Cambodia trade agreement as “a keystone of Cambodia’s export-led growth strategy and a signal of long-term market confidence.” Bilateral trade between the two countries surged to $9.56 billion in the first nine months of 2025—a 22.6 percent increase year-on-year—driven by a remarkable 22 percent rise in Cambodian exports to the U.S., according to the General Department of Customs and Excise.
The uncertainty surrounding tariffs has also rocked financial markets. On October 12, 2025, Asian stock markets fell sharply after President Trump threatened to impose higher tariffs on all Chinese imports and cancel a planned meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping. Taiwan and Hong Kong indexes dropped around 2 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi and Shanghai’s composite fell about 1 percent, The New York Times reported. U.S. stocks had already tumbled after Trump’s social media posts about a “massive increase in tariffs,” erasing the S&P 500’s weekly gains.
All eyes are now on the U.S. Supreme Court, which is set to decide between December 2025 and June 2026 whether many of the Trump-era tariffs are legal. Until then, manufacturers, exporters, and investors alike remain in a holding pattern, bracing for whatever comes next.
For the workers at Vanson Leathers and Klear Vu, for Cambodian exporters, and for global investors, the stakes could hardly be higher. The outcome of these legal and diplomatic battles will shape the future of trade—and the livelihoods of millions—for years to come.
