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North Carolina small business owners on how tariffs are negatively impacting their bottom line
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North Carolina mall business owners Abigail Helberg-Moffitt and Sam Ratto (Courtesy photos)
If you celebrated Valentine’s Day over the weekend, chances are you noted that tariffs are driving up the cost of flowers, chocolates, and many other items associated with the holiday.
Many of the products that define Valentine’s rely heavily on imports. The United States imports nearly all the cacao used to make chocolate, primarily from West Africa, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. About 80 percent of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are also imported.
To get a better idea of how across-the-board tariffs are impacting consumers, we checked in recently with two small business owners in Raleigh and in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Sam Ratto is the owner of Videri Chocolate Factory in downtown Raleigh and Abigail Helberg-Moffitt is the owner of Bloom WNC in Black Mountain, North Carolina.