Derek Tran Asks Witness About 'Devastating Impact' That Tariffs Could Have On Small Businesses

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During a House Small Business Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Derek Tran (D-CA) spoke about President Trump's tariffs and how they could affect small businesses.

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Transcript

00:00I now recognize the Ranking Member for five minutes of questions.

00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In less than a week, between 400 to 700 SBA employees were terminated

00:11with notice, then informed that terminations were a mistake, and then fired effectively

00:16immediately, effective immediately. Many of these employees were veterans,

00:21injured or disabled workers, and workers with years of service. Mr. Trent, can you please

00:27share how these terminations will affect small businesses who rely on these employees for loans,

00:32disaster aid, and small business assistance? Well, I can say that well over half of our

00:4030,000 plus membership have applied for funding through the SBA, and a significant portion actually

00:44rely on different loan products or technical assistance. Over the last couple of years,

00:49the SBA has offered honestly a real bespoke service to small business owners. We've got

00:55members in our cohort who speak directly to regional officers, loan officers that help them

01:02drive business sustainability. So the mass firing of between 400 and 700 people will inevitably have

01:10a direct impact on entrepreneurs' ability to successfully navigate the challenges that present

01:15themselves every single day as a small business owner. Thank you, Mr. Trent. Last Thursday,

01:21Administrator Loeffler announced that she is relocating six regional SBA offices away from

01:27sanctuary cities. Can you describe the effect the closure of these offices will have on main street

01:32businesses in urban areas? Well, it's really unfortunate because what it means is that

01:38you've got honest, hard-working entrepreneurs that are now caught in the middle of a game of

01:43political football that none of them wanted to have anything to do with in the first place.

01:47I'll say that the example from 2019, the relocation of the USDA offices, is a good example of what

01:54happens. When the USDA office was moved from D.C. to Kansas back in 2019, 75 percent of the

02:02workforce left. The local shops that depended on that regular foot traffic languished, and Chief of

02:10Staff Mick Mulvaney at the time was actually caught saying that this was all designed just to

02:16fire people, essentially. So it'd be good, I think, that if we talked about it in those sort

02:22of blunt terms, it's just like, yeah, we'd like to get rid of folks at the SBA. But this is a PR

02:28sleight of hand that's really disadvantaging folks. And the local economies that thrive on

02:35that foot traffic in Atlanta and Boston and Denver are certainly going to feel the effects of it.

02:39Thank you for that. And then on March 3rd of 2025, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce published a

02:44report titled, I'm Afraid, Small Businesses Speak Out on Tariffs. The report found that

02:50tariffs will have a real devastating impact on thousands of small businesses across the nation

02:55and on all Americans in the form of higher prices. What are you hearing from the small businesses in

03:00the Main Street Alliance? I have an inbox filled with terrified messages, phone calls and text

03:11messages from small business owners that aren't really sure how they're going to continue

03:16operating if some of these tariffs go through. I mean, we saw a report released from NFIB,

03:21historically the conservative voice for small business America, just came out and showed that

03:26February 12 percent of small business owners thought it was a good time to expand their

03:31business. That's a 5 percent drop from the previous month, the largest drop in that

03:35indicator since April 2020 when COVID struck. So you've got folks that are really scared out here

03:41and it's no laughing matter. Thank you, Mr. Trent. I'm going to shift to you, Mr. Gutierrez.

03:47SBDCs have received level funding over the years, yet you're being asked to do more and more with

03:54less and less. Can you please share the importance of full funding for the SBDCs and how does lurching

03:59from one continuing resolution to another hurt SBDC's ability to counsel small businesses?

04:06Thank you for the question. So when the CR happens, to be quite honest with you,

04:13it doesn't affect us because we'll have to do what we do on a daily basis and that's serve

04:17our clients. What it does is it promotes the reliance on our host universities to help

04:25or to offset any type of potential funding slowdown. And as far as SBDCs being out there

04:32and doing the things that we do, we just keep our head down, focus on serving those small businesses

04:37and make sure that we're able to do what is asked of us, what's tasked of us,

04:41through the grant program that we're tasked with. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.

Derek Tran Asks Witness About 'Devastating Impact' That Tariffs Could Have On Small Businesses

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