> if you already have a small business in the US making stuff that was hard to sell locally given the cheaper competition from abroad, people will have no choice but come to you.

Not true for many businesses. It’s common to have some inputs or machinery that is imported. Maybe you can win while you’re working through inventory and your machines aren’t breaking down, but if your COGS also go up with tariffs then it might not be a clear win.

>I didn't mean that this is going to be a net positive or even better than disastrous. I'm just saying that if you already have a small business in the US making stuff that was hard to sell locally given the cheaper competition from abroad, people will have no choice but come to you.

Unless those businesses have inputs that rely on China...which many do, those guys are going under.

>Exactly this, I bet those PCB manufacturers are quite happy. Some of their employees might get the idea of setting up a new business, too.

Those US PCB manufacturers didn't care for that business before, they focus on getting fat government or industrial contracts. The reason China was so consumer focused was because they have so much capacity that they must be friendly to my dinky $5 order. Furthermore consider that with 1.4 billion people, there are so many engineers that its extremely cutthroat. You then have a scenario where they assign an engineer to look at my dinky little $5 order because they can.