When Tariffs Strike Home ~ Small Businesses, Brazil, and the Weight of History

Uncertainty. Disruption. Resilience.

Headlines about tariffs and retaliation can feel far away, until we pause and remember the people whose lives are tethered to those decisions. For me, the story of Brazil’s formal process to retaliate against U.S. tariffs doesn’t live only in policy pages. It lives in memory of a trip I took with my family last year to celebrate my birthday, walking in Brazil’s streets and breathing in its layered history.

Walking with History

What stayed with me most wasn’t just the vibrant music, or the bursts of color in Salvador’s markets, or even the lush, endless canopy of the Amazon. It was the weight of history, the legacy of Portuguese colonialism and the slave trade. Brazil is home to the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa, because millions of enslaved people were brought across the Atlantic to power industries that enriched empires far away.

This isn’t ancient history either. It breathes in the architecture, in the food, in the rhythms of samba and capoeira. It reminds us that the economic systems we often reduce to charts and policies are built on the backs of human beings.

So when I read about Brazil’s coffee farmers or granite workers suddenly seeing their livelihoods threatened by a 50% tariff, I don’t just think of numbers. I think of people, people tied to the land, to family, to histories of both struggle and resilience.

Statue of Mercedes Batista, a pioneering black ballet dancer and choreographer, stands proudly in Rio de Janeiro, commemorating her legacy as a trailblazer in Brazilian dance.

Tariffs and Today’s Workers

On August 28, 2025, Brazil began the formal process of assessing retaliatory tariffs after the U.S. move to slap steep duties on its exports. Already, the fallout is devastating:

• Coffee farmers, many of them small producers, face an existential crisis as U.S. demand collapses.

• Natural stone quarries in Espírito Santo are shutting down, putting families out of work.

• Fruit exporters are stuck watching harvests ripen while markets close.

Behind each of these industries are families, like the ones I saw sitting together in small cafés in Rio, or children playing soccer in dusty courtyards in Recife. The people who power small businesses, whether in São Paulo or Savannah, Georgia, aren’t abstractions. They are flesh and bone.

Lessons for Small Business Leadership

What does this mean for those of us leading or supporting small businesses far from Brazil? It reminds us that we, too, live in interconnected webs. When the winds of global trade shift, the people who feel it first and hardest are not executives in glass towers, they are workers, artisans, entrepreneurs, and farmers.

For leaders of small businesses, these moments call us to:

• Tell the story: Connect the dots for your teams on why global shocks matter locally. Context breeds resilience.

• Honor humanity: Just as Brazil’s past reminds us of the human toll of economic systems, today’s choices ask us to center dignity over efficiency.

• Build solidarity: Partner with peers. Share resources. Advocate for fairer policies.

• Hold paradox: Growth and contraction, abundance and scarcity, security and fragility can all can exist at once. True leadership is holding steady through that paradox.

The Amazon, the Lungs of the World

From the air, the Amazon looks infinite, like an ocean of green. Lush. Alive. A reminder that Brazil is more than a political headline; it is one of Earth’s great lungs. And the people living at its edge, farming, building, trading, are both its stewards and its inheritors.

If history teaches us anything, it’s that when we ignore the humanity inside economics, we repeat cycles of exploitation. But when we lead with empathy, even through disruption, we make space for something different. Resilience rooted in dignity.

A Final Reflection

Small businesses aren’t small. They are vast with human stories, histories, and hopes. Whether it’s a coffee farmer in Minas Gerais, a granite worker in Espírito Santo, or a shop owner in Savannah, GA the truth is the same, global policies touch local lives.

And perhaps that’s the real leadership question. In the face of uncertainty, will we choose to see people as numbers on a balance sheet, or as the lifeblood of our shared future?