A $5 million nationwide YouTube ad campaign launched last week to target small businesses affected by the tariffs across the US, including Northbrook-based Baby Paper.
The campaign, called Small Businesses Against Tariffs, is funded by the Washington, DC-based Defending Democracies Together institute. The nonpartisan nonprofit seeks to highlight the impact of the tariffs. small businessWorkers and consumers. It is separate from the conservative organization Defending Democracy Together.
The ads are targeting small business-minded audiences through financial, business, coffee and other issue-specific channels. In the coming months, the campaign will expand to television, billboards and additional streaming platforms nationwide.
“Tariffs are paid by American importers, and those costs are passed on to businesses and consumers in the form of higher prices,” a news release from the campaign said. “Ultimately, they cause businesses to reduce operations, reduce staff, or close entirely, resulting in devastating consequences for these businesses and local communities.”
Sari Viaz founded Baby Paper, a manufacturer and distributor of baby products, around 2009. Its goods are sold at approximately 700 specialty retailers in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as online at Walmart, Amazon and Bye Bye Baby.
Viaz felt the impact of the tariffs immediately last spring. He had to pay 30% to 54% more for the products, depending on when the shipments arrived at US ports. Viaz has since increased prices by 10% to 20% To cover higher costs.
“It is also trying to predict whether tariffs will increase or decrease and when to bring the product,” he said.
Due to confusion with customs, Viaz also suffered delays and lost packages.
“Because it was such a big expense for me, I started cutting back on how much product I brought in, in order to manage my cash flow. This has created a new challenge – running out of product at a time when stores start to restock after the holidays,” she said.
There is no way for small businesses to “just move forward and bring Production Many of us in the US, like me, have been using the same factories for most of our existence and do not have the ability to find new sourcing without any lead times,” Viaz said.
Some companies like his are in a “survival situation”, he said, especially because there has been no help from the government and resources have been pulled. “Due to cuts to the Small Business Administration, defunding Score Mentors, and tariffs, many small businesses will not survive,” he said. SCORE Mentors is an SBA business advisory service.
The nine businesses featured in the campaign also include Eva St. Clair and Rebecca Melsky, founders of children's fashion brand Princess Awesome and Boy Wonder. They are based in Washington, DC, but the company's warehouse and fulfillment center is in Lyons, southwest of Chicago. Melsky grew up in Evanston.
“The first big tariff bill came with our first shipment from China in early 2025. In 2025, we paid an additional $30,000 over what we would have paid without Trump's tariffs,” Melsky said.
Melsky said, “Now we are reducing the even higher tariffs because most of our shipments were only affected by the 10% reciprocity tariff. Our business cannot withstand this increase in our costs. We have cut our wages, reduced production and raised some prices. We hope we can make it to 2026 without closing our doors.”
Through 2025, the average tariff rate on US imports is expected to rise from 2.6% to 13%, according to an analysis released last week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. About 90% of the economic burden of the tariffs fell on U.S. companies and consumers, the researchers said.
In the long run, the U.S. economy is 0.3% smaller because of the tariffs, the equivalent of $100 billion a year in 2025 dollars, according to a Yale Budget Lab analysis in January.