Small Minnesota company is leaving goods in China because it can’t afford tariffs

It doesn’t matter if you have contracts in place to sell to Target and Walmart if the cost of new tariffs on Chinese goods prevent you from getting your products.

Beth Fynbo Benike, founder of Oronoco, Minn.-based Busy Baby, wrote in a tearful social media post she is leaving $160,000 of her silicone baby mats in China because she can’t afford the new tariffs.

“I am leaving them there because I simply cannot afford to ship them here,” she said. “I am terrified for my business and for all the small businesses in the United States. ”

President Donald Trump has said he will impose on Wednesday an additional 50% tariff on Chinese goods. That will bring the tariff for many goods to 104%.

It is part of an escalating trade war by the Trump administration against dozens of countries.

Busy Baby is just at the point where its momentum is building. After a pilot run with Walmart, the southeast Minnesota company signed a contract to provide the retail giant with baby mats and other accessories through 2026. Busy Baby also is in a trial run with Target.

Already, Fynbo Benike, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s newly named Minnesota Small Business Person of the Year, has faced higher costs to scale up her company, including hiring more employees.

The custom-made silicone baby mats with tethered pacifiers, spoons and rattles were due to leave China this month.

Fynbo Benike, who was featured on the “Shark Tank” TV show and was a finalist for the Minnesota Cup, said she does not have many options.

Supporters of the tariffs say they will force manufacturing back to the U.S. and lower trade deficits.

Fynbo Benike, though, said she worked with a Minnesota chemist and company for 18 months trying to develop a U.S.-made food-grade silicone material for her products.

After that failed, Fynbo Benike went to global material experts in China to make her goods, she said.

She’d still like to manufacture in the United States, she said, but the silicone formula and the equipment required are both in China.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

Her only hope, she said, is if the U.S. backs off on the tariffs.

Busy Baby’s banker is keeping a close eye on events.

Matt Brouillard, commercial loan officer at Foresight Bank in Rochester, has two loan clients that import goods into the United States. One imports doors and windows from Canada, and then there is Busy Baby.

“They are really feeling it,” Brouillard said. The tariffs are “not doing anybody any favors. I wish I had an answer for them.”

He said patience is difficult but necessary at this point.

But that message is hard for Fynbo Benike.

“I have my entire everything ... invested into my business,” she said. “I could lose my home.”