How a luggage manufacturer in Colorado has survived Trump's trade war. So far.

Time of India

11-07-2025

Early on Tuesday, seven executives at the manufacturer
Eagle Creek
held another emergency meeting about the latest developments in President
Donald Trump
's unpredictable trade war.
A day earlier, Trump had revealed a flurry of new tariffs against trading partners, including Indonesia, where the bulk of Eagle Creek's luggage, packing cubes and duffel bags are made. The levies, set to go into effect Aug. 1, meant that imports from Indonesia would be subject to a tariff of 32%, an extra cost that would pose a significant challenge for the rugged, 50-year-old company.
Eagle Creek's leadership team discussed a range of topics at the meeting, among them its pricing strategy, given the new rates, for the upcoming fall and spring seasons.
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But there was an even more pressing matter at hand. Three shipping containers with about $240,000 worth of the manufacturer's goods were set to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles on July 30, just before the new tariffs are expected to kick in. A delay of even a few days could result in additional fees of at least $52,000 -- and up to $75,000 if Trump followed through on imposing an additional tariff of 10% on countries aligned with the policies of BRICS nations, a group that includes Indonesia.
Although it wasn't clear whether the on-again, off-again tariffs that Trump had just unveiled would hold, or whether he was bluffing, executives at Eagle Creek realized the company needed to have enough cash on hand to pay the tariff bill.
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"All this scenario planning is like a hidden tax on business," said Travis Campbell, owner and CEO of Eagle Creek, which is based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Eagle Creek's experience provides a real-time window into how Trump's approach is creating a maze of unknowns for businesses, effectively rendering many of them paralyzed as they await further clarity on what the president will ultimately do with regard to tariffs.
Even if Trump's new tariffs never switch on, their chaotic rollout has forced businesses across the country to rethink their supply chains, which in some instances are complex and difficult to untangle. Many companies have curtailed hiring plans, delayed projects and generally hunkered down in a way that could have significant implications for the broader economy.
"All forward-looking decisions just get turned down -- and maybe turned down to zero -- when uncertainty gets really high," said Chad Syverson, an economics professor at the University of Chicago.
"When you turn all that down," he added, "all the benefits that come with those investments get halted as well."
In a series of interviews and chats over text message in recent weeks, Campbell described how his company had been stuck in a state of limbo since Trump first introduced his expansive tariffs that would impose double-digit levies on dozens of countries. The White House has said a goal of the policy is to compel American companies to make their goods in the United States.
That has not been the reality for Eagle Creek. Unable to plan for the future without having a firmer view of its expenses, the company paused hiring and salary increases, and it cut back its spending on marketing. Investments in research and development, including for a new product line that the company had hoped to introduce next spring, have been frozen.
"It really impacts every single choice we can make as a business," said Campbell, a former Smartwool and North Face executive who acquired Eagle Creek in 2021 from VF Corp.
Because of the categories of materials it imports, Eagle Creek -- which also makes about 5% of its products in Vietnam -- already pays tariffs of between 17.6% and 20%.
But when Trump revealed his initial rates in early April, which included a 32% tariff on goods from Indonesia and 46% on Vietnam, the incremental $800,000 cost to Eagle Creek on its existing orders was so staggering that the company "paused everything," Campbell said.
"I don't think anybody in the business community expected the magnitude of the tariffs," he said.
To buy time to decipher the tariff rules, Eagle Creek asked its manufacturing partner in Vietnam and Indonesia to stop working on orders that were in progress. It then raced to get completed items on cargo ships before the new rates kicked in.
When days later Trump announced the 90-day pause that gave countries until July 9 to strike trade deals, Eagle Creek's goods were already en route and it was too complicated to reverse course.
"You actually can't make a defined plan and stick to it because the rules change all the time," Campbell said. Although the company has been spared the steepest tariffs, it still has to pay a base-line 10% tariff that Trump has put in place on top of its existing duties.
As Trump's July 9 deadline approached, Eagle Creek was running up against a deadline of its own. Eagle Creek typically sends out its price list around late spring and early summer to retailers to secure orders for the next spring. Without clear guidance on tariff rates, it raised its pricing with the assumption that it would face only the added 10% base-line rate, adding an asterisk that noted the prices were subject to change.
Through it all, Campbell has been forced to consider some existential questions for Eagle Creek. Should it explore bypassing the United States and importing and selling more goods in Canada and Europe to potentially avoid paying such steep tariffs? Is it even possible to manufacture some of its goods domestically? Could the global trade war spook consumers so much that they stop buying travel gear, and if so, what then?
Campbell has been outspoken about the negative effects of higher tariffs on small businesses like his, and sees himself as a kind of reluctant spokesperson for the outdoor industry. In late May, during a hearing in Denver by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Campbell told Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., that, with the new tariffs, "it feels as though our country is systematically working against businesses like ours."
Before Trump reignited the trade war this week, Campbell had been optimistic that the tariffs the administration exacted against Indonesia would settle into rates that were not so punishing. He was encouraged by the news last week that Trump had announced a preliminary trade pact with Vietnam that imposed a lower tariff of 20% on imports from that country -- far below the April figure.
Instead, Trump's renewed 32% tariff threat against Indonesia has introduced fresh confusion at Eagle Creek. Campbell was so distressed by the announcement Monday that he said he immediately jumped on his mountain bike and went for a ride to clear his head. "Much worse than I was hoping!" he said about the tariffs in a text shortly afterward.
After a whirlwind day Tuesday, Campbell was a little calmer. He had heard from an outdoor industry lobbyist that despite Trump's decision to send Indonesia a letter setting tariffs at 32%, a deal could still be on the table.
More fundamentally, he planned to adopt a wait-and-see approach as opposed to rushing to prepare for another eventuality that might not happen at all.
"Maybe we're going to take a breath for the rest of the week, rather than killing ourselves with replanning," he texted late on Tuesday, "and see if we learn more in the next few days."