Since Maile Spung’s father started Ute Mountaineer in 1977, the store has delivered on his goal of connecting customers with the outdoors by supplying gear to tourists in Aspen, Colorado, catering to local residents, and hosting community events.
It has also grappled with complications from shifting winter seasons amid global climate change. Now it faces even more unpredictability with the threat of 25% tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports, largely consumer goods that have escaped previous rounds of duties.
What’s most frustrating is the uncertainty, “not being able to make business plans or focus on innovation,” Spung told the Washington Examiner. “We’re not necessarily planning on laying off people at this point, but we’re sort of in a holding pattern.”
President Trump threatened the new duties in early June after trade talks between the U.S. and Beijing collapsed in May, and while he has since agreed to refrain from enacting the tariffs, he didn’t specify for how long. No benchmarks were set for the talks that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during the G-20 summit to continue. That, combined with the volatility of previous negotiations, has left businesses with an uncertain playing field.
At Ute Mountaineer, which purchases its inventory from large vendors that manufacture in China, the tariffs would hit winter apparel such as sweaters, gloves, scarves, and jackets, as well as items such as skis, bindings, ice skates, and sleds.
While big companies such as Patagonia and Black Diamond may be able to absorb some of the costs of the tariffs, Spung said smaller vendors that work with factories abroad have braced for a bigger hit.
“It’s harder for them to rush their products to get them here before the tariffs take effect because they’re at the back of the line,” she said. “The smaller vendors are the ones taking the brunt of the tariff impacts.”
During the height of the winter sports season, Ute Mountaineer employs 40 people. While the store serves many tourists during its busiest times, it tries to be mindful of prices for local, returning customers, Spung said.
If talks with China fall apart again and the White House imposes tariffs on all remaining Chinese goods, the high costs associated with them would trickle down from the vendors whose products are on Ute Mountaineer’s shelves to the family-owned store and, ultimately, its core customer base.
“It’s going to mostly hit the type of people looking for value rather than those able to spend a little more,” Spung said. “Ski vacations are expensive in general already, so if you’re adding higher prices to the equation, it makes it prohibitive for people to do. In general, resort communities would suffer from that. If we don’t have as many people shopping and things like that, we would have to reduce employees and inventory.”
Ute Mountaineer is hardly alone in its worries. Trump has boasted repeatedly that tariffs are an effective tool for extracting concessions from trading partners, particularly after the tactic helped him convince Mexico to help curb illegal immigration across the southern U.S. border.
In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, K2 Sports, a Seattle-based company that focuses on snow and outdoor sports products, lamented the possible effects.
“Despite the administration’s stated goal to not impact American consumers, we will have no choice but to pass these increased costs along to our customers,” John Colonna, president of K2 Sports, wrote in his letter. “Adding punitive tariffs to products like these will not spur the Chinese government to change its industrial development policies nor its discriminatory practices toward intellectual property.”
The company, which boasts a portfolio of 10 brands, specifically warned about duties on avalanche airbags, snowboard boots, snowboards, snow skis, ski bindings, inline skates, and snowshoes.
Colonna’s letter was one of more than 2,600 submissions to Lighthizer’s office regarding the new tariffs, most of them opposing the charges.
Trump has urged companies to consider moving production out of China to avoid the levies. But Chris Steinkamp, director of communications for Snowsports Industries America, a trade group representing the U.S. winter sports industry, said shifting manufacturing on a dime is not feasible.
“The trade situation needs to be equitable, but to force a tariff situation on our industry in a month is impossible,” he said. “You can’t change the supply chain in a month.”
Much of the gear manufactured and sold by outdoor recreation companies is high-performance and requires technical skill to make, he said. As a result, many businesses have sought and maintained relationships spanning decades with their manufacturers in China, which have perfected production.
“Not every factory can build that stuff, so a lot of these factories have been working with companies for decades to get these products manufactured just right,” Steinkamp said. “Even in Vietnam or some of the other countries in Asia, there might not be many factories that can do this kind of work.”
Steinkamp said he has heard from businesses across the winter sports industry, ranging from large manufacturers to small ski shops, that worry the tariffs will force them to pass higher costs on to their customers or are “terrified” they’ll have to shut their doors.
“We just can’t do business like this on a number of levels,” he said. “The pricing doesn’t work. The timing doesn’t work. These knee-jerk tariffs are not the way to go about coming to grips with something that should be negotiated with China.”
China, Steinkamp added, is not paying the tariffs. “Our ski shops and skiers and consumers are, and that’s really unfortunate.”
“People need to understand this strategy is backfiring on American consumers,” he said, “and no matter what rhetoric is coming out of Washington, the reality is American consumers are paying this as a punitive tax.”
Trump’s meeting with Xi, though, offered a glimmer of hope. The president said he agreed not to hike levies while negotiations over a trade deal continue, while China would buy “large amounts of agricultural products.” Additionally, Trump agreed to allow Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications giant added to a U.S. trade blacklist in May, to buy American components.
The president hopes a trade deal that will open Chinese markets to American companies and end Beijing’s theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets is in reach.
But while Trump has been steadfast that tariffs will push China into an agreement, Spung worries about the long-term effects. Many businesses in the winter sports industry don’t have lobbying shops devoted to dealing with the federal government, she said, and executives now have to divert important resources to fighting the tariffs.
“Vendors are spending a lot of time on this when they could be innovating new products, integrating with communities,” she said. “We’ll see its impact in the future, maybe things slow down based on a lack of innovation and excitement because of the actual sweat equity they’ve had to pull away from that to invest in these talks about tariffs and redoing supply chains.”
