Nevada truckers who voted for President Donald Trump now face “significant hardship” as the president’s controversial tariffs go into effect.
Steve Finn, owner of Premium Trucking in Las Vegas, who voted for Trump in 2024, “said he wouldn’t pull the lever for Trump again if given the opportunity today,” the Las Vegas Sun reports, frustrated by what he considers a lack of preparation from the president regarding his trade policies.
“We did everything way too fast,” Finn told the Sun.
Trump, Finn added, “should have prepared some businesses for this. And I don’t think anybody’s [prepared] for this because all this administration talked about was, ‘Everything’s going to be great.’”
According to the report, “Much of Finn’s business relies on conventions. The CES tech extravaganza each January sets the tone at the start of the year.”
And, as Finn told the Sun, “As of right now, it looks pretty bleak.”
“I think a lot of people are pulling out [of] CES, so I think that’s going to be a sign that 2026 is going to be a rough start,” he said.
Truline Corp. President Paul Truman said his company is struggling “to be proactive” in the face of Trump’s chaotic economic policies.
“You become very reactionary to the marketplace and just try to do the best job you can do,” Truman said.
Truman said consumers will start to see the effects of Trump’s tariffs on the store shelves in as little as two weeks.
Shashi Nambisan, director of University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s Transportation Research Center, likewise told the Sun consumers are “going to be looking at the middle of May when you can see the ripple effects of that hit our store shelves.”
But Nambisan warned the impact won't be limited to the trucking industry.
“Think about the people they hire: the drivers, people who maintain their trucks, others who will be in the warehouse,” Nambisan said. “Then at each of these stores where we as consumers go to buy stuff, there are people who work in these stores to stock the store, so on and so forth.”
“It’s got a major ripple effect in the economy,” he added.