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Why Trump’s tariff proposals have some business owners worried
Los Angeles — Bobby Djavaheri is trying to stock up his warehouse with appliances from overseas, while he can still afford it.
“We’ve been preparing for the last six months — both our factories and us as importers — for Trump to win,” Djavaheri told CBS News.
Djavaheri is president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances, which manufactures its products in China. He says President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to increase tariffs will force him to charge more.
His company’s Yedi Evolution air fryer is currently priced at $130, Djavaheri said. He estimates that Trump’s proposed tariffs would raise that price to about $200. Yedi’s two-quart air fryer currently costs between $30 and $40. Trump’s tariffs could raise that to almost $100.
Trump campaigned on implementing a blanket tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports, along with an additional 60% or more on goods from China.
“It would decimate our business, but not only our business,” Djavaheri said. “It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Djavaheri says it is not Chinese companies that pay the tariffs, it is his own business.
“We’re getting the bill, the bill comes straight to us from the government,” Djavaheri said.
Brian Peck, adjunct assistant professor of international trade law at USC, says Trump’s tariffs could also be a negotiating tactic.
“If he doesn’t like a certain practice or policy initiative, he can use it as leverage to threaten them,” Peck said. “…It’s important for the American people to understand that the people who pay tariffs are U.S. importers. Not China, not foreign governments, not foreign companies. That’s going to come down to your wallet.”
An August study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics indicated that Trump’s proposed tariffs could cost middle-income households more than $2,600 a year.
In 2018, when Trump slapped tariffs on imported washing machines, prices jumped almost $100. But foreign appliance makers also moved some production to the U.S., and a year later they had created 1,800 new jobs.
Other countries, however, retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports, which led to job losses.
According to Djavaheri, most of Yedi’s products cannot at the moment be manufactured in the U.S.
“There’s no factory in America,” Djavaheri said. “A factory that could potentially produce hundreds of thousands of air fryers in one year, same quality, there’s no where in the world other than the Chinese.”
Djavaheri’s advice? If you’re considering a purchase, make it before the potential tariffs kick in.
The U.S. received written assurance from Iran before the presidential election that its leadership was not actively trying to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, CBS News confirmed, according to a source with direct knowledge of the correspondence. The message arrived after the White House in September affirmed that killing a former U.S. president or former U.S. official would be seen by the Biden administration as an act of war.
“We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats,” National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement in September.
Iran said in its message, which was conveyed by a third party, that it understood this premise. The Wall Street Journal first reported Iran’s message to the U.S.
The Justice Department is currently prosecuting at least two individuals alleged to have been part of murder-for-hire plots to kill Trump while he was still a candidate. One operative working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told federal investigators that he was tasked in September with “surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating” Trump, according to court records unsealed last week.
Prosecutors said Farhad Shakeri, who is believed to be residing in Iran, told investigators in a phone interview that unnamed IRGC officials pushed him to plan an attack against Trump to take place in October. If the plan could not come together in time, the Iranian officials directed Shakeri to delay the plot until after the election because the official “assessed that [Trump] would lose the election,” the charging documents said.
In early August, a Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran was arrested and charged with plotting a murder-for-hire scheme targeting U.S. government officials and politicians, according to charging documents unsealed Tuesday.
A U.S. official pointed out that Iran did not task its most effective proxy force, Hezbollah, with carrying out these plots. This official described Iran’s approach to date as “nice if it works. If it doesn’t, then it’s not a problem.”
In response to inquiries suggesting that “Iran told U.S. it wouldn’t try to kill Trump”, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran said it would not comment on official messages between two countries.
The mission said in a statement, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has long declared its commitment to pursuing Martyr Soleimani’s assassination through legal and judicial avenues, while adhering fully to the recognized principles of international law.”
Trump has raised the ire of Iranians for a few reasons. He exited the international Iran nuclear agreement, which had lifted some sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. He also directed the 2020 airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Since then, some Trump administration officials and military officials received threats from the regime, among them, Robert O’Brien, who was national security adviser during the strike. His predecessor in the job, John Bolton, who was part of the maximum pressure campaign that exerted sanctions pressure on Tehran, has also received threats.
In 2022, the U.S. intelligence community assessed that Iran would threaten Americans — both directly and via proxy attacks — and was committed to developing networks inside the U.S. Two persistent threat assessments submitted to Congress by the State Department in January 2022 cited a “serious and credible threat” to the lives of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Trump administration Iran envoy Brian Hook. The non-public assessments showed that throughout 2021 and again in 2022, the State Department determined that round-the-clock, U.S.-taxpayer-funded diplomatic security details were needed to protect both men. That continues today.
Multiple former officials have spoken to CBS about duty-to-warn notices that they have recently received from the FBI and other agencies regarding the ongoing threat from Iran and Iranian-hired actors, implying the U.S. is taking the threat seriously and not taking the Iranian regime’s assurances at face value.
contributed to this report.
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