Dear Editor: 

I have a worldwide reputation as a designer of recreational boat electrical systems. I work with a local company in Woolwich to supply equipment for these projects. I am currently working with another Florida-based company which has its boats built in China but shipped to the U.S. for completion and commissioning. It hires installers and riggers and service people in the U.S. 

We are already seeing the impacts of Trump’s tariffs. Up to 30% price rises for equipment we ship overseas, resulting in canceled orders. Import duties which will bankrupt those small boatbuilders for whom the core construction is done overseas. Job losses, good jobs, across the board with zero possibility of this strengthening the boatbuilding industry in the U.S. 

In his lifetime, Donald Trump has filed for bankruptcy six times. He has been an incompetent steward of his various companies, but he is not the one who has suffered. It is all those hard-working people who lost their businesses and jobs because they were never paid. He has always become richer.  

If we do not speak up with a unified voice, Donald Trump will do to the U.S. what he has done repeatedly to his companies. He is on track to bankrupt small businesses on a national scale. We will pay the price; the billionaires will benefit from our pain.  

The time to stand up and be counted is now. 

Nigel Calder 

Newcastle