New York City businesses say tariffs, boycotts hitting them hard - Toronto Star

As U.S. tariffs squeeze small businesses, New York tourism from Canada has plummeted, leaving hotels and local shops fighting to survive.

Evette Zayas, owner of CakeBurgers in East Harlem, New York City, is just one of several business owners in the city crying out now for an end to the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

NEW YORK CITY—Evette Zayas describes her retro diner and bakery, CakeBurgers, as a bulwark against the “craziness” of the modern world.

Every day, she says, she sees her customers’ worries washed off by the doo-wop on the jukebox. 

“We want to take people away from their devices,” she said from inside her restaurant, which is replete with vintage decor, including a functioning rotary phone and antique radio. “That’s what’s messing up society right now, devices — and tariffs.” 

Zayas has run her restaurant out of a pre-war tenement block in East Harlem for the last seven years. She says she’s never raised her prices all the while, even through the pandemic. The reason is more practical than altruistic: people don’t have the money to pay, she says. Not in the least because of taxes on imports instituted by the United States government this year and last, which, for her, have made necessities unaffordable.

An updated U of T tool reveals Trump’s new tariffs have the potential to impact almost 250,000 Toronto jobs.