To Our Community of Creators, Artists, and Small Businesses
Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a wave of dismissive comments:
“Just make it in America,”
“You’ll figure it out,”
These comments come from people who aren’t in the trenches like we are. They don’t see what it’s really like for artists and small businesses trying to keep the lights on, provide for their families, and build something real.
The hard truth is that most of the products we help bring to life simply cannot be made in the U.S. There are no factories for these items here. We’ve spent over a decade building relationships with trusted partners in China. These are not just faceless supply chains, they're people we’ve come to rely on. You can’t just throw that away and “figure something else out” overnight.
And now, Trump’s new tariffs on China are throwing our entire community into chaos.
We started with a 54% tariff. Two weeks later, we’re at 245%. This isn't policy, it’s economic whiplash.
When you’re running a small business, predictability is everything. You plan months ahead. You budget. You forecast. But how do you plan when the rules keep changing every week? Every time the tariff increases, we get flooded with messages from artists and creators who are scared they’re going to lose everything. Orders placed just days before the announcement are suddenly in jeopardy.
No one knows what’s going on, and it’s grinding the creator economy to a halt.
95% of our customers in 2024 were U.S.-based artists, brands, and small businesses. These aren’t faceless corporations. They’re solo founders, family-run shops, and indie creators who use merchandise to fund their work and share their voice.
We’re not standing by while that gets taken away.
So here’s what we’re doing:
Alchemy is absorbing all import tariffs on orders placed through May 30th.
We’ll eat the costs to create a safety net, because most of those orders should land before the end of June. It’s our way of saying: We’ve got your back.
We’re also watching one crucial policy closely, the De Minimis $800 exemption. For years, packages valued under $800 have entered the U.S. without extra fees. That’s set to expire on May 2nd. And it wasn’t rolled out with months of preparation. It was announced on April 2nd, with 30 days notice. We’re hoping this is a bluff for negotiation, but if it goes through, it could destroy how small creators move products across borders.
These aren’t giant boat shipments. These are individual, custom, retail goods, declared properly, with factory values and HS codes. This is how small businesses survive. Killing the exemption doesn’t level the playing field, it decimates it.
Will factories come back to the U.S. for these kinds of goods? No.
On-shoring some high-tech production might make sense, but that’s a long game. If COVID and the war in Ukraine taught us anything, it’s that supply chains are fragile and interconnected. A 245% tariff won’t bring manufacturing back. It just punishes the people trying to create something meaningful today.
Some argue these tariffs are retaliation for unfair foreign practices. They weren’t based on tariff fees other countries placed on US goods. They were based on a trade deficit. And the U.S.’s biggest export has always been U.S. dollars.
If you want to understand why this matters, look into Bretton Woods and Triffin’s Dilemma—how the U.S. became the world’s reserve currency and how we got trapped needing to run deficits to maintain it. When Nixon took the dollar off gold in 1971, it set off decades of debt accumulation. Today, we’re feeling that squeeze.
We’re watching a collapse in predictability, a weakening of the dollar, and a widening gulf between what we’re told and what’s happening on the ground. Meanwhile, creators are just trying to figure out how to keep creating to support themselves.
So what do we do now?
We fight for each other.
Alchemy has been through the fire. This isn’t our first rodeo. Starting with a clothing brand, then Pin Game Strong, and now, over 12 years in, Alchemy Merch. We’ve weathered storms before, including COVID. And we’ll do it again.
But we’re not sugarcoating this:
• A 245% tariff is unsustainable.
• A trade embargo with China is not realistic.
• And uncertainty like this threatens everything we’ve built together.
To every artist, band, brand, and creator we work with:
We see you. We’re with you. And we’ll keep showing up for you, because you are the backbone of this country. Not policy. Not politics. People.
Let’s get through this together.
—Greg & The Alchemy Team
