Michelle Feinberg is betting on immigrant workers from Brooklyn China -Bask and homeless shelters – not the Trump's pricing war – to launch her new personal protective equipment factory in New York.
The 53 -year -old founder from New York Embroidery Studio, a manufacturer of fashion contracts, has built a workforce of 300 people – including dozens of Latin immigrants living in shelters and more than 200 Chinese women of first generation – to produce everything, isolation dresses with navy work uniforms for the federal government.
Feinberg welcomes Trump's pricing hikes, which “immediately” led to “two to three calls per day” by private customers, even though Nyes continues to rely massively on government contracts which will run out by 2027.
However, she fears that her EPI company does not survive beyond this date, because the uncertain perspectives of the trade war complicate the efforts to penetrate the commercial market.
The Nyes fight to stay afloat highlights the challenges encountered by the Trump administration to revive the manufacture of the United States through the greatest trade war for decades.
While pricing hikes are supposed to benefit manufacturers of national EPP known for their thin razor margins, a multitude of uncertainties – from labor shortages to future import rights – can prevent the industry from collecting the expected gains.
“If Trump really wants to build a solid manufacturing sector, you would need stable and established prices that do not change on a whim,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of commercial policy at Cornell University.
“You would also need more stable purchasing and immigration policies that facilitate the securing of inputs that manufacturers need. On all these dimensions, we see a lot of volatility and uncertainty. ”
Few industries have as much symbolic importance as the PPE when the United States faced a serious shortage during the cocoked epidemic due to an import suspension from China. The crisis prompted administration Biden to adopt legislation in 2021, forcing federal agencies to store PPE by buying in national factories.
Feinberg took the opportunity after the pandemic put its fashion business under stress. It has won several contracts for isolation and surgery dresses, worth more than $ 100 million, the US military and the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the National Institutes of Health.
The manufacture of work, already broken in the United States, poses a major challenge for the Nyes which has trouble competing with Chinese counterparts with significantly lower wages.
Feinberg sought to solve the problem by installing its factory in Sunset Park, a district with a large population of Chinese immigrants who created “a giant work swimming pool” for Nyes.
The strategy has borne fruit because more than two -thirds of Nyes workers are Chinese immigrant women who lack English competence and professional skills to ensure other jobs.
“It is very difficult to find a job,” said Vicky Yan, a Chinese packaging worker who joined Nyes in December after being unemployed for three years, “I came across this opportunity and I seized him.”
Another solution to the shortage of labor is to hire immigrant workers from homeless shelters. Nyes since April has recruited 27 people in city shelters and plans to increase this number to 150 next year.
“Manufacturing has always been an immigrant game,” said Mike Saxon, Managing Director of Nyes. “Many people who are in shelters are legal to work and they are happy to work in a factory and have a stable job.”
Polina, a 33 -year -old single mother from Venezuela, said she joined Nyes as an embroidery operator in early April after having lived in a refuge in Long Island City, a New York district for more than six months.
“I had no unique skill when I came here,” said Polina, who made the minimum wage in New York of $ 16.50 an hour. “I learned at work.”
Feinberg has mixed feelings about the Trump trade war. The taxation of 145% of prices against Chinese products last month, she said, would bring Nyes to “from a spit from an import price”. However, the uncertainties concerning the outcome of American-Chinese commercial negotiations have made it difficult for her to commit.
“If the prices are 145% and we know that they will remain 145%, we will make a set of investments,” she said. “If this goes 25%, it is a different set of investments.”
Many American manufacturers in industries face a similar challenge because they find it difficult to make business plans in the middle of the tariff war. Carl Porter, president of WGN Flag & Decorating Co. in Chicago, said that trade tensions have created a “mass confusion” which prevented him from planning price adjustments or making new hires.
“All Trump says is that we are going to have these big prices. Now we are going to have no prices. Now we have an agreement. Now we don't agree, it was a terrible day,” said wearing. “We just don't know what to expect and when we expect.“”
A greater problem is whether pricing will allow Nyes to develop on the more lucrative commercial market once its government contracts will expire in two years.
Feinberg said that Trade War had “started” his conversation with private clients, “everyone is waiting to see where we are going to go”.
Analysts are cautious about the prospects of Nyes. Sanjiv Bhaskar, vice-president of research in EPI at Frost & Sullivan, a council based in Texas, said that the manufacturers of Chinese PPE, which represent more than half of the American market, will continue to undermine their American competitors even after tariff hikes.
“You must create an entire ecosystem for the EPI industry to become a competitive cost and it takes time in the United States to build one,” said Bhaskar.
Nyes' growing dependence on foreign workers in shelters, many of whom have entered the United States without appropriate documentation, also expressed concerns after Trump's repression against illegal immigration that sparked an increase in deportations.
“The Trump administration policy on immigration reduces everything that is easily accessible to these small manufacturers,” said Prasad of Cornell University.
Feinberg is aware of the risks because she is ready to fold her EPI business if commercial orders are not available as late as next year.
“We have a very short delay to make it work,” she said. “Our competitive advantage is simply that we exist and that we can make medical PPE. This is not a lasting advantage. ”
