Small businesses in La Plata County say they have felt the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and are not optimistic about receiving refunds after the U.S. Supreme Court struck them down last week.
Aya Trevino and Jason Rodriguez, owners of Durango barbecue restaurant SUP Craft BBQ, said tariffs have driven up the cost of products they source, and they are not holding their breath for a refund as a result of the ruling.
Though the pair source their meat domestically, trickle-down impacts of tariffs have caused U.S. farmers and ranchers to raise prices, Trevino said.
“Even though I try to buy U.S.-grown (products), everything is affected by the tariffs, because every industry has things coming in from overseas, no matter what it is,” Trevino said.
Trevino said pork has increased by $1.50 per pound and beef by $3 per pound, and a 5-pound bag of Spanish paprika has jumped from $27 to $67.
“What I am doing as a small-business owner is essentially knowing I’m going to take a (financial) hit on something every week in ordering,” Trevino said. “It really is out of my hands. It really is out of my control, and I have to buy what I have to buy. So, it’s kind of like a rock and a hard place.”
Rodriguez said rapid shifts in product prices caused by tariffs have made budgeting and accounting more stressful.
“From an accounting perspective, the unpredictability of the market has changed (things),” he said. “I don’t think it’s the way any business really wants to do business, but right now it’s how we have to do business. There’s no stability – and there really isn’t a lot of predictability – because it’s so unstable.”
Cream Bean Berry owner Katie Burford said she intentionally ordered large quantities of products most susceptible to tariffs – like cocoa powder, chocolate, coconut milk, coconut oil and coffee beans – before the tariffs took effect. Since then, prices have increased noticeably, she said.
“Coconut milk went from $100 to $121 a case,” she said in an email. “Just recently cocoa powder went from around $200 for 25lbs to $332.49. I’ve been able to offset some of the increases by shopping around and buying large quantities.”
Burford said prices for some items, like sugar, are slightly lower when bought in bulk – but that approach requires paying more upfront and finding storage space in a small shop.
Buford said her most needed products – milk and cream – are sourced from Colorado and have not increased in price as a result of tariffs. But the shop faces other steep costs, like rising health insurance, that make the price increases on products a strain.
“I’m not optimistic that refunds will happen,” she said. “Even if they did, I don’t know how they would even begin to sort out who owes what to whom.”
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper has demanded immediate refunds for small businesses impacted by the tariffs.
In a news release, Hickenlooper said the Trump administration should “promptly repay businesses the $175 billion they’ve been taxed and help relieve the increasing prices their tariffs have caused for Americans.”
Hickenlooper, along with 21 Senate colleagues, introduced the Tariff Refund Act of 2026 on Tuesday – a bill that would require the Trump administration to fully refund businesses that paid the tariffs.
“President Trump’s tariffs were illegal from the start,” Hickenlooper said in a Tuesday release. “Hard working families and small businesses should never have had to pay this extra tax. Now, the White House needs to immediately return the money they took.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said a possible refund process could be a “mess,” according to reporting by The New York Times.
For now, the potential outcomes and impacts of the Supreme Court decision – including whether refunds will be issued and what that process may look like – are largely a wait-and-see situation, said Fort Lewis College economics professor Nate Peach.
The temporary nature of the 15% tariffs put in place by the Trump administration last week, along with uncertainty surrounding the federal response to the Supreme Court ruling, means the economic outlook – in La Plata County and nationally – will likely remain unclear for the foreseeable future, Peach said.
“A lot of times, when there’s this much uncertainty, (businesses) kind of have to hold back on bigger decisions or certain types of investments because they just don’t know what the future looks like,” he said. “... We’re still dealing with an environment where tariffs are really high too, right? By historical standards, this is a pretty exceptional time.”
Because Durango’s economy is remote and tourism-based and does not operate as a manufacturing hub, even if tariffs achieve their intended national goals, the city is unlikely to see major benefits, Peach said.
epond@durangoherald.com
