A heartfelt, personal message from KOOSHOO's founders about tariffs

Hello friends,

Jesse and Rachel here, Founders of KOOSHOO. 

We sent the letter below to our newsletter subscribers this morning and are sharing it here too for anyone that may have missed it. We’ve had some unexpected conversations over the past week — from global tariffs to penguins on uninhabited islands (still wrapping our heads around that one) — and while we've made light of the situation, we do also want to address the tariffs head on.

We hope the message below answers any questions you may have about said tariffs and what it means for KOOSHOO.

 

 

That absurdity became a perfect metaphor for the lack of precision and care with which these tariffs have been rolled out—surgery by sledgehammer, if you will.

 

Not targeted. Not strategic. Not grounded in facts.

 

So while we were fielding media calls from around the world, the real impact was already hitting closer to home.

 

Because while the Norfolk tariff is a non-factor, the 26% tariff on India and 24% on Japan—the countries where KOOSHOO products are actually made—are very real.

 

We’re a small business, headquartered on Norfolk Island and incorporated in Australia. We manufacture in India and Japan, and ship directly to warehouses in the USA, Canada, and Australia. We’re also global citizens—dual Canadian and Australian—and Rachel is an eighth-generation Norfolk Islander, descended from the Bounty mutineers.

 

We’ve built KOOSHOO around a belief that we are more connected as humans than divided, and that the future lies in collaborating across borders, not retreating behind walls.

 

 

But the pricing simply didn’t. We were 2.5x too expensive for the average consumer, even with big-name retailers ready to buy and put their volume on the table. And the specialized machinery and skills we needed just weren’t available.

 

So we moved our production closer to the farms where our raw materials already grew (the inputs of US fashion manufacturing almost entirely come from overseas) and partnered with exceptional people doing excellent, ethical work.

 

Having experienced both sides—made in America, and made abroad—we feel confident in saying: these tariffs won’t bring this kind of manufacturing back to the US—at least not like this. Without massive re-trainings, structural shifts in societal thinking, and a middle class with far more disposable income, this will only bring one outcome: making everyday goods more expensive. 

 

It’s ultimately a tax on Americans, poorly disguised as a solution.

 

And that’s what frustrates us so much.

 

So we’re asking, humbly: Please support the small businesses you love.