FALL RIVER — They make their products in America, the kind of domestic manufacturing President Trump says he wants to encourage with his punishing tariffs on the country’s global trading partners.
But the plush cotton in the luxurious towels the linen company Matouk makes here comes from Egypt; the broccoli in the prepared dishes Blount Fine Foods sells to restaurants comes from Guatemala and Mexico; and while a lot of the raw materials Davico uses to manufacture automotive parts in nearby New Bedford come from the United States, some are imported from as far away as India.
Here, on the South Coast of Massachusetts, where manufacturers already employ thousands, where production lines already churn out American-made goods for sale to American consumers, the whipsaw of tariff directives from Trump has filled factory bosses with annoyance, dread, and feelings of paralysis.
“This is a very frustrating thing as a manufacturer,” said George Matouk Jr., who runs a nearly century-old maker of fine linens. “These universal and reciprocal tariffs, which are supposed to provide [an] incentive for manufacturing investment in the United States, are actually damaging manufacturers more than helping them.”
On a recent afternoon at Matouk’s factory in Fall River, Cairo towels were being embroidered with designs by a machine from Germany, after which they are stitched and packaged for sale to customers across the country. The company employs about 280 people. It sells its products to retailers, such as Bloomingdale’s, and boutique hotels, and has a store in New York City.
The cotton in the towels is from Egypt, where it’s turned into yarn. Next, it moves to Portugal, where it is woven into terry cloths and dyed, and then transported by sea to the United States.
The Cairo towels are just one line of products from Matouk. The tariff regime proposed and then paused in part by Trump would affect goods the company makes at its Fall River factory, which account for 45 percent of its total sales.
“We’re talking about millions of dollars that the government is now going to be taxing us every year on materials that we require for manufacturing, job creation. And these materials are not available in the United States, and my opinion is that they never will be, no matter how long these tariffs are in place,” Matouk said.
Last week, Trump delayed his severe global reciprocal tariffs for about three months, days after the administration said that reports he was considering a pause were fake news. Chinese imports, however, were not spared, and now many face tax hikes of 145 percent. The suspension also did not apply to the 10 percent base line rise in import levies that has gone into effect and will apply to almost all US trading partners.
The on-again, off-again approach of the new administration’s trade policy has injected uncertainty into businesses across the region.
At Blount Fine Foods, the company sources most of its fresh food ingredients in the United States. However, it imports broccoli from Mexico and Guatemala.
When the Trump administration said it would hit Mexico with tariffs, chief executive Todd Blount said the company had planned on buying more Guatemalan broccoli. But then the move to impose reciprocal tariffs on almost every country scrambled those plans, and Blount returned to the source in Mexico.
Blount said that at the moment, Mexican broccoli was not subject to tariffs under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump negotiated during his first term, while the broccoli from Guatemala would be.
The company also imports equipment from Europe to automate some of its packaging and cooking. But the lack of clarity on whether the tariffs will, in fact, come into full effect has made it tough to budget for their cost.
“Our budget hasn’t changed. So, worst case, we’ll buy a little less equipment or delay a purchase until the following year,” Blount said. “The uncertainty is almost as bad as the problem itself.”
The speed with which US trade policies have shifted over the last two months may have caught some manufacturers, such as those in southern Massachusetts, flat-footed, economists said, and they now have to scramble to adjust to the new reality.
“They’re either going to have to devote lots of resources to try to figure out new suppliers in countries with lower tariffs, compete with other domestic producers for access to domestic producers of those inputs — which don’t necessarily exist — or make painful decisions about what product lines to keep up,” said Nina Eichacker, an associate professor of economics at the University of Rhode Island.
For Ray Surprenant, who runs Davico, a manufacturer of catalytic converters out of New Bedford, said planning for his business has been a struggle. Davico sources raw materials in the US, but also from China, India, Canada, and Mexico.
“We’ve been trying to plan and make some sort of supply chain decisions and it’s just been nearly chaotic and very difficult to understand,” Surprenant said.
Surprenant’s company has 75 employees, and he has struggled to decide whether to raise prices. His biggest fear is that costs will suddenly go up, which could put pressure on the company’s cash position.
“Ultimately, you never want to be losing money and not knowing it,” he said. “It’s just very difficult to plan.”
Surprenant said he takes pride in being a manufacturer in New Bedford, a city with a long, proud industrial history. He also said tariffs could help a company like his compete with cheaper Chinese alternatives.
But he is skeptical the Trump administration’s trade policies will prove to be a catalyst for a new era of manufacturing in places like southern Massachusetts.
“I feel like they’re rolling the dice on that because it’s never really worked in any country if you go back 250 years and study where it’s been done,” he said.
“Maybe I’ll be wrong in five years and become a protectionist,” Surprenant said. “But we’ve just never seen it work, so I am very nervous about that side of it.”
Omar Mohammed can be reached at omar.mohammed@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter (X) @shurufu.