Tariff concerns for Buffalo printing plant with higher costs for inks and aluminum printing plates

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The White House put more tariffs in place Thursday, including a 50 percent boost on commodities from India because of that country’s use of Russian oil. 

That raises more concerns for a Buffalo based commercial printing firm.  

2 On Your Side visited the Broadway facility of BNP Empowered Print.

For 43 years BNP Empowered Print has been churning out daily up to three million printed pieces of circular advertising and coupons for grocery stores, retailers and other forms of targeted direct mailings. 

But for the 83 company staffers to make that happen it takes tons of paper from Canada in their warehouse, which so far is tariff exempt under a pre existing trade agreement.

But there is also plenty of colorful ink stored in the large tanks at the plant. 

On that point BNP Empowered Print President Tom Majerski explained that “the pigments that make up certain colors can only be found in specific counties such as India and China. So when we hear on the news about a 50 percent tariff now for India, you start to wonder, ‘OK, are certain colors now going to rise even more?’ “

Also the aluminum sheets, used to make printing templates for the wording and layouts of those printed ads, come from Canada and are subject to 50 percent tariffs.  

Majerski adds that some of their printed material is for Canadian merchant customers.

“Canada’s reaction to the Trump tariffs has been retaliatory tariffs on goods, trying to go dollar to dollar,” he said. “Unfortunately, our category of printed products is assessed tariffs, so every time we ship something across the border, we’re assessed a 25 percent tariff on the value of those goods, and we’re absorbing that cost right now.”

That is to stay business competitive and viable in that north of the border market.

But back to all those “so far” exempt rolls of paper for printing … couldn’t that be U.S.-sourced?

Majerski says “it’s more expensive, and then obviously to ship it across the country would be cost prohibitive too. If paper was affected that wouldn’t be a great option, but we might have to explore that.”

Majerski added further, “Has tariffs been a concern or an issue we have dealt with in the past? Yes, but never at this level of severity.”

Just like many executives and managers right now, Majerski is seeking some stability on trade issues for future business planning, but he is not really seeing it at this point.

“It is very hard to forecast what your pricing is going to be a year or two from now because some contracts are multiyear contracts. So how do you navigate that? It’s a good question, I wish I had the answer. It’s challenging, right? It’s kind of … it’s uncharted territory,” he said. 

Majerski has been speaking with various politicians for advocacy support and perhaps to seek some form of bridge assistance until the tariffs situation settles down for his company and his employees.