On Friday in Topeka, a Kansas businessman stood up and told Roger Marshall what Trump's tariffs had done to his company. Marshall told him he was the exception.
Zac Surritt is part of the third generation running R&S Maintenance, a metal fabrication and machine shop in Meriden. At a Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce forum on October 16, he told the senator that tariffs had cut global demand for the company's products and lowered its margins, while shipping costs soared and his workers' cost of living went up. The company had to put off plans to expand, the Kansas Reflector reported.
"Our small businesses can't sit and wait on a promise for things to happen," Surritt said.
Marshall's answer:
"I think your experience is different from most of the other manufacturing companies that I have talked to. Most of them are expanding. How's your business?"
Surritt told him: "Business has slowed down this year. Our margins aren't where they were a couple years ago."
Marshall didn't move. "I think most manufacturing across the state of Kansas is growing because of these tariffs," he said.
The data says Surritt isn't the exception
Marshall wants Kansans to believe the people hurt by tariffs are a few unlucky outliers. The numbers say otherwise.
- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported this month that by February 2026, the 2025–26 tariffs had added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods price inflation, and that without them those prices would have fallen slightly.
- The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, put the cost of Trump's tariffs at about $820 per household in 2026.
- In February, the Supreme Court ruled unlawful the tariffs Trump imposed under an emergency-powers law. The government is now working to refund $166 billion to the businesses that paid them. Rep. Sharice Davids said Friday that the average Kansas small business importer has gotten back $49,000 of the $140,000 it paid.
Marshall had his chance to stop them
This isn't a senator who just went along. Marshall had a direct vote on the tariffs and used it to keep them.
On April 30, 2025, the Senate voted on a resolution to end the emergency Trump used for his global tariffs. It failed on a 49–49 tie. Marshall voted no. One more vote would have passed it.
He has cheered the policy ever since. In February 2025 he said "President Trump put the world on notice" and that reciprocal tariffs would "ensure long-term economic growth." He told Kansans the tariffs had given "especially Kansas farmers and ranchers — access to critically important export markets." He went on Fox Business to call one tariff deal "another great day of winning for President Trump and for America."
Friday was his chance to hear from a Kansas manufacturer living with the results. He decided the manufacturer was wrong.
Who Kansas businesses are telling
Marshall's opponent, Democrat Adam Hamilton, spoke at a separate chamber event the same day. He said he has met with most of the largest employers in Kansas and "they've all told me the same thing": that a business needs "stability and predictability," and "what we have today is instability, unpredictability and chaos." He said there have been 56 tariff changes in the past year.
Hamilton also pointed out that Canada buys about $4 billion of Kansas goods a year, and that Trump publicly questioned whether Bombardier, which has its U.S. headquarters in Wichita and about 1,500 workers in Sedgwick County, can build quality aircraft.
The bottom line
At a Topeka forum on October 16, a Meriden manufacturer told Roger Marshall that Trump's tariffs had cut his company's demand and margins and delayed its expansion. Marshall told him his experience was "different from most" and said Kansas manufacturing is "growing because of these tariffs." The New York Fed says that by February the tariffs had added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation, the Tax Foundation puts their 2026 cost at about $820 per household, and in April 2025 Marshall voted against ending them on a vote that failed 49–49.
