Could tariffs ‘cancel’ Halloween and Christmas in 2025? Philly area small-business owners are worried.

South Jersey business owner Robert Berman types the same words into his phone’s search bar every morning when he wakes up and every night before he goes to bed: “China U.S. tariff update.”

It’s been part of his daily routine since President Donald Trump started increasing tariffs on many Chinese imports. Among those imports are the costumes, hats, and props the Berman family has sold at Rasta Imposta/Imposta Costumes for more than three decades.

As of Friday, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods like these were at 145%.

Imposta had about $3 million worth of products, including next season’s Halloween costumes, sitting at a factory in China earlier this week. The Bermans said wholesale customers had asked the Runnemede-based company to pause orders as the business community waits to see whether the tariffs stick.

This week, Walmart indicated intentions to cut back its orders so much that Imposta would no longer turn a profit, said Tina Wayne Berman, chief creative officer. A Walmart spokesperson on Friday said they had not canceled any orders.

“We’re running the risk of having to shut down for a couple months,” Tina Wayne Berman said. “These are actual fatal blows.”

Trump said on Tuesday that the tariffs on Chinese imports could “come down substantially,” but did not indicate when or by how much. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the President was considering cutting tariffs on some goods by more than half.

If high tariffs on China stay in place, “companies like mine could go out of business,” said Robert Berman, Imposta’s CEO. Big-box stores could cancel their orders, he said, and the prices of products sold on Amazon or the company’s website would skyrocket.

“A $40 costume could now be $100,” Berman said, “and would the consumer spend $100 for a banana costume to wear to the Savannah Bananas baseball game? Will they wear that or will they just say ‘We’ll buy a T-shirt?’”

Trump has said the tariffs are intended to boost U.S. manufacturing, create American jobs, and encourage consumers to buy homegrown products. But in recent weeks, they have led to economic turmoil, market volatility, and lots of uncertainty.

» READ MORE: Trump’s ‘ham-handed’ tariffs have long-term implications for global markets and interest rates, economist Zandi says

Seasonal business owners are among those feeling anxious. Companies that depend on holiday sales plan their inventory months in advance. These retailers usually rely on Chinese factories, which make about 87% of Christmas decor sold in the U.S., according to Reuters.

The Mount Laurel-based Halloween and Costume Association, of which Berman is a board member, released a statement earlier this month with the subject line: “Tariffs threaten to cancel Halloween and cripple Christmas.”

On a recent 70-degree day in South Philadelphia, Derek Gould was already worried about the winter holidays. He is the vice president of Orman Inc., a 100-year-old family-run importer of fall and Christmas decor, including holiday lights.

“We’re not quite at the part of the season yet where it could make or break us,” Gould said of the tariffs. “But that’s approaching.”

Orman is also in tariff limbo, Gould said, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of holiday decor sitting in China.

“Eating that cost is not feasible,” said Gould, who supplies holiday lights to professional commercial and residential installers. “We’d have to close our doors.”

» READ MORE: ’Tis the season for some Philly suburbanites to spend $5,000 on professional holiday lights

He said he doesn’t know of a viable alternative to manufacturing in China.

“I don’t have an option to buy these products domestically. I never have,” Gould said. “Could they ultimately be produced here? I guess, but it’d be a multiyear venture. You’re talking about building factories, staffing factories, training the employees.”

For five years in the 1990s, Imposta’s colorful Austin Powers-inspired suit costumes were made in a factory in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, Robert Berman said. But then the factory closed, unable to compete with its counterparts overseas.

“We realized we had to go overseas, or we’d be out of business,” said Tina Wayne Berman.

Robert Berman, her husband, said he doesn’t see cut-and-sew manufacturing coming back to the U.S.

“Where could we do it? Where would we find the people to train to be sewing-machine operators?” he said. “It’s an industry that has left America.”

The Bermans hope their business can survive as an American success story. It’s one that got its start when Robert Berman glued wool dreadlocks to a baseball cap and sold the hat off his head for $20 and a beer at a Long Beach Island bar. The couple met shortly after, when Robert approached Tina to ask if she’d sell his hat at her Beach Haven boutique, the Mod Hatter.

The company officially started in Robert’s parents’ Cherry Hill basement, then moved to a Runnemede building that his father and uncle owned for their candy and tobacco company.

Once the country’s top producer of “adult humor” costumes, their selection now runs the gamut from banana and hotdog suits to officially licensed costumes — branded beer bottles, the Flyers’ mascot Gritty, even a replica of Jason Kelce’s Mummer’s regalia from the 2018 Eagles Super Bowl parade.

Robert Berman’s sister and co-business partner, Jodi Berman, shared the family’s plight with U.S. Sen. Andy Kim at a town hall on Tuesday.

Soon, “your Halloween costumes will be $100, and that is if you can get the product,” Jodi Berman told the hundreds gathered in Cherry Hill. “My business potentially can go bankrupt from this disaster.”

“What is Congress or even the state preparing to do to help small businesses like mine?” she asked Kim, a Democrat from South Jersey.

The senator vowed to try and get support for small businesses, telling Berman “you have every right to be upset about this, to be viscerally angry about where things stand.”

Even if tariffs are reduced, Gould said, it may not be smooth sailing.

“Every importer is going to have a mad dash to get their stuff on the water,” Gould said. “It certainly could end up creating a logjam.”

But it’d be worse if tariffs remain. He’d have to cancel about 75% of his holiday-decor shipments, he said, with the “saving grace” being that the rest come from Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Those countries are subject to tariffs, too, Gould said, but those are smaller ones “we can handle.”

Staff writer Aliya Schneider contributed to this article.