At The Cut Butchery in Alexandria, Virginia, some of the cheese that used to sit in the case simply isn't there anymore. Owner Ben Knezic says tariffs have made certain imported products too costly to keep selling, forcing him to raise prices on cheese, wine and other goods he brings in from overseas — with the holiday season now bearing down and no easy fix in sight.
Knezic opened the specialty shop in 2025, offering fresh meats, seafood, imported wines, cheeses and specialty foods to customers in the Washington, D.C. suburb. As reported by Queen City News, President Trump's tariffs are making some of the products he sells more expensive, and he says prices on goods have continued to rise. “We've had to raise prices on a lot of things like cheese and wine and some of the other stuff we import,” Knezic said.
Some imported wines now cost 10% more, according to Knezic, and that added cost gets passed straight on to customers. Importers have also stopped bringing in certain Canadian cheeses because higher prices have driven down demand, he said — and for some products still available, the math no longer works. “With the tariffs now, it just doesn't make sense to sell,” Knezic said of the cheeses he's had to pull from his shelves.
Scrambling for Alternatives Before the Holidays
Knezic says the shop is actively searching for substitute products as the holiday season approaches, a stretch when specialty cheese and wine sales typically climb. He described the adjustment as a matter of necessity rather than choice. “Find other products or alternatives. We've been able to make it work,” he said.
The underlying mechanics are straightforward: importers pay tariffs on goods brought into the United States, and those added costs can make their way to businesses and consumers through higher prices. That dynamic isn't unique to one butcher shop in Alexandria — it's playing out across the broader import economy that stocks American grocery shelves and specialty counters alike.
A Nationwide Squeeze Beyond the Cheese Case
The pressure extends well past specialty foods. Per the Tax Foundation, tariffs still apply to more than half of imported food products and will continue to raise prices for consumers; after exemptions, 52% of U.S. food imports — worth about $116 billion based on 2024 values — face IEEPA tariffs. The group also notes that as of February 1, 96% of European Union food imports, including wines, spirits, baked goods and seafood, continued to face a 15% IEEPA tariff.
Wine has been especially exposed. Trade data examined by the drinks business show U.S. wine imports fell 16.8% in volume and 25.2% in value during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, with the average import price dropping 10.1% to €4.52 per litre. The outlet attributes the decline largely to Trump's tariffs, along with a broader shift away from wine among American consumers. French wine shipments to the U.S. fell 25% to €955.8 million in the same period, while Italian shipments dropped to €791 million, the publication reported.
Canadian Cheese and Whey Caught in Tariff Crossfire
The Canadian dairy products Knezic has had trouble sourcing sit at the center of a wider trade dispute. On September 15, the United States added Canadian cheese to its 50% tariff list, and on September 29 it banned imports of Canadian whey products under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension. The same analysis estimates that a sustained Canada-only dairy tariff action could shave roughly $0.20 to $0.35 per hundredweight off U.S. milk prices, with a wider planning range of $0.10 to $0.50, translating to an estimated $65 million to $113 million in reduced annual farm milk sales across Wisconsin alone.
Fuel Costs Pile On for Other Small Businesses
Tariffs aren't the only cost pressure small business owners are navigating. Business owners nationwide are also dealing with fuel surcharges as the war with Iran continues, according to Queen City News. At Alexandria-based Express Moving and Storage, co-owner Robin Boldt told Reuters the price of filling up a truck has climbed from about $250 to nearly $300. “It used to cost us about $250 to fill up a truck, and now it's closer to $300,” Boldt said.
Boldt said the company is reluctant to raise its rates because doing so risks losing jobs to competitors, but rising diesel costs are squeezing the math on quotes set months in advance. “If diesel continues to go up, we can't change our price. And so our margins become thinner and thinner,” she said, adding that larger van lines have more of a financial cushion to absorb the higher fuel costs than a mid-sized company like hers. “Now we either need to just not accept it or we are going to have to raise that rate,” Boldt said.
For his part, President Trump has said tariffs are helping the American economy grow, claiming they have brought the U.S. trillions of dollars and spurred domestic manufacturing growth, and that tariffs do not cause inflation but instead drive success and growth, according to the article. The White House has maintained that fuel prices will fall once the conflict with Iran ends. For now, owners like Knezic and Boldt say they're the ones absorbing the gap between those claims and what shows up on their invoices.
