Because of changes in Trump’s taxes, companies are unsure and having many problems.

President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff-driven reversal of decades of free trade is creating financial chaos for the very sector it’s meant to rebuild: American manufacturing.

Although the full extent of economic damage is still unclear, volatile tariff policies are making it tougher for American companies to make and sell goods, whether they’re producing medical devices in Florida, toys in Ohio or bicycles in California.

Even though the Trump administration put many of its sharpest levies on hold last week while boosting tariffs on China, companies around the country say the recent messiness of announcements and uncertainty is hurting business: Their costs are rising, and demand is slowing as spooked customers in the United States and abroad slam the brakes on spending.

The economic picture, both in the United States and globally, is quickly souring as the U-turn in American policy upends the global trading system and roils financial markets. The odds of a recession have spiked in recent weeks. The value of the dollar has tumbled, and Treasury yields have climbed, as investors abandon both, worried about the reliability of the U.S. government.

The fallout has been most pronounced for companies that buy or sell from China, which last week got hit with a 145 percent tariff. But even those that do business with other countries say international buyers are treading carefully, sometimes pausing orders or canceling shipments altogether while they wait to see how the White House’s policies shake out.

“This whole uncertainty over ‘tariffs are here, tariffs are gone’ has been damaging on its own,” said Paul Sadoff, owner of Rock Lobster Cycles, a custom bike maker in Santa Cruz, California, who ships worldwide. “My orders have certainly slowed. Why would someone in Japan or Australia or Canada order an American bike if things could change dramatically again next week? It’s like everything is frozen.”

The Trump administration has for months said new tariffs, including a 10 percent blanket tax on all imports, are aimed at boosting U.S. manufacturing, as part of its “America First” trade plan. White House officials have said they must take decisive steps to reshape the economy, by closing the federal deficit and bringing back some of the 4.5 million factory jobs that have disappeared since 2000. But, Trump and others have acknowledged, such a massive shake-up could lead to short-term economic pain. Shoring up U.S. manufacturing, the president said last week, is “an opportunity to change the fabric of our country.”

Many U.S. manufacturers say their optimism for prosperity has been eclipsed by growing concerns about economic turmoil. The industry was already showing signs of weakness in March, after a brief expansion earlier in the year as companies tried to get ahead of tariffs. Now, manufacturing trade groups say they’re being inundated with calls from members who are fretting about canceled orders and slowing growth.

In interviews with more than a dozen American manufacturers, most said they were struggling to smooth over alliances with overseas suppliers and buyers. Nearly all were facing higher costs on key materials or machinery, and several said they’d already seen demand dry up because of tariff-related uncertainty.

“When you lay out tariffs and yank them back, over and over, the threat of it wears off and turns into an unwillingness to work with American companies,” said Suzanne Shriner, president of Lions Gate Farms, which sells its Hawaiian-grown Kona coffee throughout Asia and Europe. “We’ve been exporting internationally for 20 years, and all of a sudden our markets are closing up.”

Customers in Canada — which last month imposed 25 percent tariffs on some U.S. imports — and Japan are rethinking their purchases, she said, because they’re worried about the unpredictability surrounding future costs. And this moment isn’t without precedent: Shriner’s company lost nearly all of its business in China during the first Trump administration, when the country hit back with duties on American agricultural goods.

This time around, though, economists say the Trump administration’s protracted threats have upended relationships with just about every U.S. trading partner, especially after the last-minute pullback of tariffs on dozens of nations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week that “more than 75 countries” have contacted the White House to talk through trade policies. “Each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke. It is going to take some time,” he said.

In the meantime, business owners say they’re in limbo. Economists are increasingly warning that a recession is on the horizon, with JPMorgan saying last week that it still expects a downturn despite Wednesday’s pause on some tariffs. Consumers are skittish, too, saying they expect unemployment and inflation to get significantly worse in the coming year. Americans’ economic confidence, which has fallen for four straight months, is near an all-time low, according to a University of Michigan survey released Friday.

“It’s become extremely difficult for U.S. manufacturers to keep doing business, which is ironic because that’s the very group these tariffs are supposed to protect,” said Lizbeth Levinson, an international trade attorney at Fox Rothschild. “Businesses are putting everything on hold. They literally can’t plan from one day to the next.”

International orders for Little Tikes’ brightly colored Cozy Coupe have stalled in recent months, and have yet to pick up even after Trump temporarily paused tariffs on most countries last week. The company manufactures its ride-on vehicles in Hudson, Ohio, and typically ships about 200,000 overseas, to Asia, Europe and Latin America.

But now, with trade policies in flux and China striking back with an 125 percent duty on U.S. goods, distributors are wondering whether it’s worth stocking the $65 toy at all.

“Basically every country in the world is saying, ‘Hold on, let us find out what’s going on.’ They’re pausing or they’re canceling,” said Isaac Larian, chief executive of Little Tikes’ parent company, MGA Entertainment. “All of Asia is shut down for now — if I ship a Cozy Coupe from Ohio to China and it gets slapped with a 125 percent duty, nobody is going to buy it anymore.”

The instability, he said, has put a chill on holiday toy orders. Retailers do most of their Christmas buying in the spring, but this year are holding off, not knowing whether the toys they buy now will cost more by the time they arrive in the fall. Larian says his own expenses are likely to go up in the coming weeks: Although the Cozy Coupe is made in the United States, a number of components — including screws, axels and rope — come from China.

The back-and-forth has been enough to hurt international prospects for some companies. Brough Brothers Distillery, which makes bourbon, gin, rum and vodka in Louisville, was about to close a deal to sell liquor in New Brunswick, Canada, when Trump first floated 25 percent tariffs on the country just hours into his presidency. Although many of those measures were eventually paused or watered down, the damage was done, CEO Victor Yarbrough said.

“We were about to finalize things when they said, ‘We unfortunately can’t do this,’” he recalled. “They’re taking American whiskeys, spirits and wines off the shelves. It’s beyond tariffs at this stage, it’s about whether or not we can build back these relationships.”

Now Yarbrough is wondering what to do long-term: Should he expand to the United Kingdom and South Africa, like he’d planned, or focus instead on selling to more bars and restaurants in the United States? He’s also considering opening a distillery in Canada, to serve the market there. “How do we grow and expand when it’s not clear where these tariffs are headed? That’s our big challenge now,” he said.

Still, some U.S. manufacturers — especially those that don’t do much business abroad — are encouraged by the Trump administration’s broad overhaul. Trump campaigned heavily on the promise of creating new factory jobs, arguing that tariffs will encourage companies to move operations to the United States.

Red Land Cotton, a textile company in Moulton, Alabama, is firmly rooted in the United States: The company grows cotton at its own farms; has it sewn into bedsheets, T-shirts and quilts at plants throughout the South; and sells almost exclusively to U.S. customers.

Although the company relies on foreign-made sewing machines that could soon become costlier, the fallout of the trade war has so far been minimal. CEO Anna Brakefield is hopeful that new tariffs will encourage a resurgence in manufacturing that would help her expand her own business.

In the past year alone, four partner plants — including two that manufacture bath towels for the company — have closed, because of a lack of domestic demand. Brakefield is down to one fabric finisher to process and bleach her textiles, which means it’s taking months longer to get products made and on shelves than in the past, she said.

“Maybe if there were more companies that needed these services, we’d start to see more of a domestic supply chain,” she said. “It’s been a crazy week and a day, but that is the kind of opportunity I am hopeful about.”

Chris Christenberry, who runs a medical devices company in Tampa isn’t quite as optimistic. He sells scar-management kits and skin health products to burn units, cancer centers and plastic surgeons in 80 countries and said recent uncertainty has been debilitating for business. Among his biggest worries is that Chinese customers, unwilling to shoulder new tariffs for American-made goods, will find ways to copy his products, instead.

For now, he is holding off on expansion plans by scrapping two job openings — including an international sales position — and pausing investments.

“I’m just a small U.S. business trying to do what we’re supposed to: make products at home, and sell them around the world,” said Christenberry, CEO of Atlantic Medical Products. “But because of this man-made economic crisis, we’re ruining trust with other countries. Our international distributors are saying, ‘Our clientele is so mad at the Americans.’ We don’t know if they’ll keep buying.”